tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/border-protection-12737/articlesBorder protection – The Conversation2022-12-07T04:12:27Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1959092022-12-07T04:12:27Z2022-12-07T04:12:27ZJailing Indonesians for shark finning in Australian waters doesn’t solve the real driver – poverty<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499428/original/file-20221207-16-8t1zto.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=93%2C59%2C5568%2C3615&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>Last week, four Indonesian fishermen <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-28/indonesian-fishermen-fined-after-fishing-in-australian-waters/101707274">were convicted</a> for taking shark fins and poaching fish in Australian waters. The four men were spotted off remote Niiwalarra/Sir Graham Moore island in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, more than 150 nautical miles inside Australia’s exclusive economic zone. </p>
<p>But is fining them up to A$6,000 – a huge sum for these men – likely to stop sharks being killed? Hardly. The reality is, they have no capacity to pay the sum. Instead, they’ll likely serve a month or so in jail and return to Indonesia. There, they’ll face the same problem driving them into Australian waters – poverty. </p>
<p>Desperate Indonesian fishers are setting out across the Arafura Sea in record numbers, with <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-11/indonesia-australia-illegal-fishing-priority-g20/101640876">46 fishing boats</a> detected since June this year. Many gamble with their lives – and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-23/why-indonesian-fishermen-sneak-into-australian-waters/101321960">some have lost</a>. Authorities have found <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-29/suspected-illegal-indonesian-fishing-camp-kimberley-coast/101373634">illegal fishing camps</a> on Niiwalarra Island, alongside shark carcasses with their fins taken. </p>
<p>Shark fins are sought mainly in Chinese markets for use in a high-status soup and in traditional medicine. Demand has seen wholesale slaughter of these predators, essential to the proper functioning of ocean ecosystems. We’re hardly blameless – Australia exports <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/study-names-australia-as-a-major-source-for-shark-fin-trade-20201027-p5692n.html">tonnes of shark fin</a> each year. We have to find a better way of protecting sharks in our waters – some of the last healthy populations on the planet. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Shark fins" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499429/original/file-20221207-22-29psdd.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">Desperate fishers take the valuable fins - and leave the shark to die.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>Would you risk your life for a shark fin?</h2>
<p>While Indonesia’s economy is growing strongly, there’s a huge divide between rich and poor. The waters around its thousands of islands are fished heavily, and Indonesian fishers catch seven million tonnes a year, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/sustainable-fishing-by-2025-what-is-the-current-situation-in-indonesia/a-60134067">second only to China</a>. </p>
<p>But heavy fishing means many fish stocks are now low, and tensions have risen between larger trawlers and small-scale fishers from villages. If you’re from a poor village and there’s nothing left to catch locally, where do you go? </p>
<p>You can admire the courage of fishers who set out in very small, barely seaworthy vessels with rudimentary fishing equipment to cross the Arafura to poach fish. In reality though, it’s a mix of courage and poverty-driven desperation. A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322361883_A_Review_on_Indonesian_Fishermen_Prosperity_in_the_Coastal_Area">2018 report</a> found fisher monthly income was roughly A$50 per month, well below the minimum wage in coastal regions.</p>
<p>You can see the choice many face. Continue in poverty – or try to catch sharks, knowing a fin can sell for as much <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-16/sharks-fin-overfishing-lombok-tourism/12434698">as a month’s wages</a>. </p>
<p>Not all shark fins are the same. Particularly prized are fins from the critically endangered <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/39385/2918526">scalloped hammerhead shark</a>. These sharks have fins with a high thread count, meaning they are desirably fibrous. Killing of these sharks for their fins has <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/39385/2918526">almost wiped out</a> populations in parts of their range – but they’re still relatively abundant in Australian waters.</p>
<h2>How is Australia responding?</h2>
<p>The Australian Defence Force has a near-constant presence watching for fishers through its <a href="https://www.defence.gov.au/operations/resolute">Operation Resolute</a> and assisting with <a href="https://www.afma.gov.au/international-compliance">enforcement efforts</a> run by Australia’s fisheries management authority.</p>
<p>Enforcement ranges from “educating” fishers found inside Australian waters and sending them on their way to confiscating equipment and catch to criminal charges. Australia and Indonesia <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-11-11/indonesia-australia-illegal-fishing-priority-g20/101640876">regularly talk</a> about illegal fishing. And Australia has signed up to shark protection efforts <a href="https://www.fao.org/ipoa-sharks/background/about-ipoa-sharks/en/#:%7E:text=The%20objective%20of%20the%20IPOA,and%20chimaeras%20(Class%20Chondrichthyes).">internationally</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-you-can-help-protect-sharks-and-what-doesnt-work-186031">How you can help protect sharks – and what doesn't work</a>
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<p>Despite this, the issue is worse than ever. Last decade, an average of 20 foreign fishing boats <a href="https://www.afma.gov.au/sites/default/files/afma-annual-report-2021-22.pdf">were intercepted</a> each year. Last financial year, it soared to a staggering 337. Sharks aren’t the only drawcard – fishers take finfish and sea cucumber too. </p>
<p>Why? The pandemic. Indonesia was hit hard, with tourism drying up and many people losing income. But another is that sharks are vanishing from their usual ranges. To find them, you have to go further afield. </p>
<h2>Why are sharks still killed for their fins?</h2>
<p>Eating shark fins is good for no one. There are no identifiable health benefits. There’s no taste you couldn’t get from eating cartilage from farm animals instead. And when you eat the fin, you’re <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2016/mar/10/shark-fin-soup-a-dangerous-delicacy-for-humans-and-sharks-alike">likely to get</a> a dangerous dose of mercury, which accumulates up the food chain. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="shark fin soup" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499430/original/file-20221207-4043-t3utfy.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>
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<span class="caption">Shark fin soup has long been an expensive high status meal in Chinese culture, as in this 2009 photo from a Hong Kong restaurant.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BionicGrrl/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>From the shark’s perspective, it’s a <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/restaurants-sell-shark-fin-soup-despite-state-bans">particularly gruesome</a> way to die. Fins are typically cut from the shark while it’s alive. When released back to the water, it will either sink and drown, get eaten by another predator, or die from blood loss.</p>
<p>Sharks and their close cousins, rays, <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-01-28/alarming-70pc-decline-in-shark-and-ray-numbers-study-says/13096442">have been decimated</a>, with populations of 18 key species falling a disastrous 70% since the 1970s. They’ve been caught as bycatch by trawlers and longliners, sought for their fins or their oily livers, or killed out of fear. </p>
<p>While there’s occasional <a href="https://oceanographicmagazine.com/news/cop19-protection-for-sharks-achieved/#:%7E:text=The%2019th%20Conference%20of%20the,54%20shark%20species%20increased%20protection.">good news</a>, it is difficult to be optimistic.</p>
<p>Our slaughter of an estimated 100 million sharks a year is <a href="https://europe.oceana.org/importance-sharks-0/">devastating for nature</a>. Before we began killing them wholesale, shark numbers were much higher. Healthy shark populations act as a <a href="https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/sharks-how-a-cull-could-ruin-an-ecosystem">stabilising force</a> on prey species and keeps ecosystems in balance. Tiger sharks keep seagrass beds healthy by eating the turtles which graze them. </p>
<p>Killing sharks can destroy other fisheries. Losing large sharks <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sharks-overfishing-idUSN2919371720070329">led to the end</a> of the North Carolina scallop fishery. Without large sharks, cownose ray populations exploded, and the hungry rays ate all the scallops. </p>
<h2>So what can we do to save our sharks from desperate fishers?</h2>
<p>This is a wicked problem. “Education” is hardly going to stop fishers who know precisely why they’re here and what risks they’re taking, as the steep rise in illegal fishing suggests. Fines they can’t pay and the inconvenience of short prison sentences are clearly not doing the job.</p>
<p>You might wonder why we can’t get advance warning of fishers heading into our waters. Even modern radar struggles to spot small wooden boats across millions of square kilometres of ocean, and surveillance planes and patrol boats can’t be everywhere. Besides, until the vessels reach Australia’s exclusive economic zone, they have every right to be on the high seas. </p>
<p>In 2011, China launched a campaign to make shark fin soup unpopular, driving demand down 80%. But demand is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/02/14/even-as-china-turns-away-from-shark-fin-soup-the-prestige-dish-is-gaining-popularity-elsewhere-in-asia/">still high</a> in Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, and rising fast in places like Vietnam and Thailand. Wider campaigns like this are needed. </p>
<p>We should also help Indonesia find more sustainable ways of tending its own fisheries, and tackling coastal community poverty. </p>
<p>Jailing and fining fishers is a knee-jerk solution. As long as shark fin soup is on the menu and as long as we have valuable sharks, there will be fishers desperate enough to come into Australian waters to hunt them. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/crimes-at-sea-when-we-frame-illegal-fishers-as-human-and-drug-smugglers-everyone-loses-152231">Crimes at sea: when we frame illegal fishers as human and drug smugglers, everyone loses</a>
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<p><em>Zoe Schmidt contributed to the research basis for this article</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Marinac is a partner in Pacific Maritime Lawyers, a law firm which routinely represents various Australian seafaring industries, occasionally including Australian fishers. He also served aboard patrol boats as a Transit Security Officer on Operation Resolute in 2008-09.</span></em></p>Fining and jailing Indonesian fishers taking shark fin is a knee-jerk solution. As long as sharks keep vanishing and demand for shark fin soup remains high, illegal fishing will continue.Anthony Schuyler Marinac, Lecturer, College of Business, Law and Governance, James Cook UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1350112020-04-02T17:09:37Z2020-04-02T17:09:37ZWhy Trump tried to use the coronavirus crisis to ‘Mexicanize’ the U.S.-Canada border<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/324770/original/file-20200401-23105-1e02wgf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=305%2C0%2C2676%2C1500&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An inscription on the Peace Arch at the crossing between Washington state and British Columbia alludes to the special border relationship between the U.S. and Canada. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For more than 150 years, the United States and Canada have shared what is commonly called the “<a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-49th-parallel.html">longest undefended border</a>” in the world. And yet in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, reports emerged that the United States was intending to place military troops near the border as part of Washington’s plan to stop the spread of COVID-19.</p>
<p>Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6741347/coronavirus-border-troops-trudeau/">such a move would be a “mistake”</a>. After several days of confusion, Trudeau <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6762458/us-canada-border-troops/">announced the U.S. had, at least temporarily, backed off</a> on any plans to send troops in response to fears that infected people could illegally cross the border.</p>
<p>What’s behind this threat by the United States to militarize its northern border? For the answer, look to America’s southern border.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/border-coronavirus-military-immigration/">Leaked documents revealed</a> that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had requested the Department of Defense deploy more than 1,500 troops to both the southern and northern borders to support border enforcement during the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<h2>Troops requested for northern border</h2>
<p>Specifically, CBP had requested 1,000 personnel on the northern border and 540 personnel on the southern border. The 540 personnel would be added to the 5,200 troops already present at the U.S.-Mexico border that followed President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/15/us/politics/national-emergency-trump.html">declaration of a national emergency</a> over undocumented immigration in early 2019.</p>
<p>The leaked memo referred to “illegal entries” having “the potential to spread infectious disease.” The memo did not clearly explain how these troops were going to be used — only that they “will not conduct civilian law enforcement activities.” The conditions of the use of force were also unclear. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/keep-on-trucking-trucks-must-keep-moving-across-canada-u-s-border-amid-coronavirus-134223">Keep on trucking: Trucks must keep moving across Canada-U.S. border amid coronavirus</a>
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<p>Canada and the United States had already <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/canada-us-border-closed-covid-19_ca_5e760dbdc5b6f5b7c544fc51">agreed to close their land border to non-essential travel</a> as a way to stop the spread of COVID-19. That decision did not mean the border would be entirely closed — the flow of goods by land was vital for both economies and would not be stopped. Cross-border commutes related to grocery shopping, studies and work <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6711194/canada-us-border-closes/">were still allowed as well</a>.</p>
<p>Canada’s diplomatic response to the American attempt to militarize its northern border, generally polite but at times tense, is not surprising given the asymmetrical Canada-U.S. relationship.</p>
<h2>‘Sleeping with an elephant’</h2>
<p>In 1969, Canadian prime minister <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1797537698">Pierre Trudeau famously said</a> that living next to the United States “was in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly or temperate the beast, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” </p>
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<span class="caption">The U.S.-Canada border was closed to non-essential traffic on March 21 in an attempt to contain the coronavirus pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward</span></span>
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<p>Because of this structural asymmetry, Canada-U.S. relations dramatically changed after the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Despite Canadian efforts to meet U.S. security demands against terrorism, Paul Cellucci, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, bluntly stated in 2003 that “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/11926422.2018.1542604">security trumps trade</a>.”</p>
<p>And yet <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/canada-and-the-iraq-war/when-security-trumps-trade-keeping-americas-doors-open-to-canada/">both national economies are deeply interdependent</a>. In the early 2000s, 87 per cent of Canada’s trade went to the U.S. and about one-quarter of America’s trade came to Canada. In 2018, U.S. exports to Canada <a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/canada">accounted for 18 per cent of its overall exports</a>, totalling US$363.8 billion, while Canada’s exports to the U.S. had a partner share of 75 per cent, <a href="https://wits.worldbank.org/CountryProfile/en/Country/CAN/Year/LTST/Summarytext">totalling US$337 billion</a>. </p>
<h2>Security the priority</h2>
<p>Several Canada-U.S. cross-border regions are integrated (infrastructures, economies, <a href="https://www.niagarafallstourism.com/niagara-region/niagara-falls-new-york/">tourism</a>, etc.), but U.S. prevalence of national security has dominated the border agenda since 2001. </p>
<p>The metaphor of <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002070200506000214">the “Mexicanization” of the U.S.-Canada border</a> was used to reflect the primacy of this security agenda on both Mexican and Canadian borders.</p>
<p>The traditional U.S. security focus on drug and illegal immigration on the southern border was renewed after 2001 — but terrorism and weapons of mass destruction also became one of the key national security priorities, which also applied to the northern border.</p>
<p>In this new context, U.S. border workers contributed to make both borders more uniform: CBP officials who are trained and on duty on the Mexican border later move to the Canadian border. They bring with them the corporate culture of CBP from the southern border — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13597566.2017.1343722">values, beliefs and behaviours tainted with U.S.-Mexico border challenges</a>.</p>
<p>In parallel, a longstanding collaboration between CBP and the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) exists. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2017.1355785">But it is essentially focused on U.S border monitoring and law enforcement</a>, which is very similar to CBP’s management of the southern border with (or without) Mexican authorities.</p>
<p>The Mexicanization of the northern border conveys the idea that the Canada-U.S. bilateral relationship is far from being unique — or special. The U.S. increasingly sees Canada as just another border where national security threats emerge without distinction.</p>
<p>This imbalance between security and trade over the last two decades has contributed to <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2011.590291">numerous regional and local initiatives</a> in order to demonstrate that <a href="https://cedar.wwu.edu/bpri_publications/117/">security and trade imperatives can co-exist</a>. </p>
<p>But the leaked CBP memo shows there is no longer a distinction between the southern and the northern borders. Both are seen as a threat to the safety and security of the United States.</p>
<p>It also shows the world’s longest undefended border is just a fig leaf — an egalitarian symbol in order to hide the deep imbalance between the two countries.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/135011/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bruno Dupeyron receives funding from SSHRC. </span></em></p>The U.S. wanted to use the coronavirus pandemic as a reason to send the military to its northern border. The idea is part of America’s desire to “Mexicanize” the world’s longest undefended border.Bruno Dupeyron, Professor and Graduate Chair, Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy; and Assistant Professor of Law,, University of ReginaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1135572019-04-10T20:11:03Z2019-04-10T20:11:03ZDog whistles, regional visas and wage theft – immigration policy is again an election issue<p><em>This article is part of a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/coalition-record-2019-69102">series</a> examining the Coalition government’s record on key issues while in power and what Labor is promising if it wins the 2019 federal election.</em></p>
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<p>Immigration policy will be a major issue in the 2019 federal election. We know this because immigration has featured significantly at every Australian election since the 2001 “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_Overboard_affair">children overboard</a>” election. </p>
<p>David Marr and Marian Wilkinson argued in their 2003 book, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/dark-victory-20030329-gdgiaw.html">Dark Victory</a>, that willingness to play the race card in relation to boat people was a decisive factor in John Howard’s election victory. For Tony Abbott, “Stop the boats” was a major campaign theme when the Coalition won back government in the 2013 election. The current prime minister, Scott Morrison, rose to prominence as Abbott’s unyielding immigration minister who stopped the boats.</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>While the <a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-strike-at-the-heart-of-muslims-safe-places-from-islamophobia-113922">events of Christchurch</a> may have cramped the opportunity for the Coalition to run hard on fear, promising to be tough on borders and tough on (Muslim) terrorism, the dog-whistle politics on the issue of refugees and asylum seekers will be there for those wanting to hear it.</p>
<p>For Labor these policy issues have been difficult. It was Kevin Rudd who as PM <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-more-asylum-in-australia-for-those-arriving-by-boat-rudd-16238">declared that those arriving by boat would never be settled in Australia</a>, irrespective of the validity of their claims for protection under the UN <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/en-lk/1951-refugee-convention.html">Refugee Convention</a>. Labor supported efforts to get children out of detention on Manus Island, but doesn’t want to give the conservatives too much space to convincingly advance a “Labor weak on border security” line.</p>
<h2>Humanitarian intake is growing</h2>
<p>The Coalition governments of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison have in fact increased Australia’s annual humanitarian intake significantly. The number has <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/BudgetReview201516/Migration">risen from just over 13,750 to more than 18,000</a> – though the government has not loudly broadcast this fact. </p>
<p>In addition, Abbott in 2015 announced a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-ups-its-syrian-refugee-intake-but-what-about-its-own-backyard-47160">one-off intake of 12,000 Syrian conflict refugees</a>. Most of them arrived in 2017, effectively doubling the annual refugee intake in that year.</p>
<p>Australia – and the refugees – coped well, demonstrating the nation’s capacity to significantly increase refugee intakes. <a href="https://theconversation.com/refugees-are-integrating-just-fine-in-regional-australia-101188">Our research</a> with newly arrived Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan refugee families suggests they are settling well in Australia, receiving a warm welcome from locals in the cities and regional centres. Employment and family reunification are their key worries.</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>Labor’s shadow immigration minister, Shayne Neumann, has flagged a new <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/yourlanguage/punjabi/en/article/2019/02/12/labor-government-will-replace-new-sponsored-parent-visa">temporary sponsored visa for the parents of migrants</a>. Unlike the current visa, it does not have a cap and it might assist refugees to get their parents to Australia.</p>
<p>Labor has <a href="https://www.alp.org.au/asylumseekers">announced it will increase the annual humanitarian intake</a> of refugees to 27,000 by 2025. It will also abolish <a href="https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/temporary-protection-785">Temporary Protection Visas</a> (TPVs). These visas provide boat arrivals who are found to be refugees the right to stay for only three years with work and study rights and access to Centrelink payments. As Labor argues, this places them “in a permanent state of limbo”.</p>
<p>The Coalition parties have not announced their policy intentions in relation to humanitarian intakes or the rights of asylum seekers, including those who arrived by boat.</p>
<p>At a time when Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton scans the horizon for new boat arrivals, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/worst-ever-immigration-minister-asylum-seekers-jet-in-under-dutton-s-nose-20190302-p511d8.html">record number of asylum seekers are arriving by plane</a> under tourist visas. In 2013-14, there were 18,718 asylum applications, including 9,072 boat arrivals. This had increased to <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/12/09/record-number-asylum-seekers-peter-dutton/">27,931 asylum applications, with no boat arrivals, by 2017-18</a>. </p>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Home Affairs</span></span>
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<p>Each year the Australia government sets the permanent immigration targets. Until recently this was set at 190,00. In practice just <a href="https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/research-and-stats/files/report-migration-program-2017-18.pdf">162,000 immigrants have been admitted</a> over the past year or so. </p>
<h2>A token cut and 2 new visas</h2>
<p>In this context Prime Minister Morrison’s announcement that the <a href="https://theconversation.com/slimmed-down-migration-program-has-regional-focus-113847">permanent immigration target will be cut to 160,000</a> is really no change in immigration policy. There is nothing to see here if you dismiss the need to be loudly anti-immigration in the current populist political climate.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-population-plan-is-more-about-maximising-win-wins-than-cutting-numbers-114190">Government's population plan is more about maximising 'win-wins' than cutting numbers</a>
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<p>The announcement is linked to congestion-busting in the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne. It is accompanied by the <a href="https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/federal-budget/immigration-cuts-and-regional-visas-to-ease-strain-on-sydney-and-melbourne/news-story/da7de88690966d4c202ab0d372a5b253">introduction of two new visa pathways</a> – the Skilled Work Regional (Provisional) Visa and the Skilled Employer Sponsored Regional (Provisional) Visa – for skilled migrants to live and work in regional areas for five years.</p>
<p>These visas offer the carrot of permanent residency at the end of three years to attract new immigrants to regional Australia. In addition, the budget announced that scholarships to the tune of $94 million over four years would be available to domestic and international students who study there.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/settling-migrants-in-regional-areas-will-need-more-than-a-visa-to-succeed-114196">Settling migrants in regional areas will need more than a visa to succeed</a>
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<h2>Temporary migrants exploited</h2>
<p>Most immigration policy debates centre on permanent immigration intakes, particularly of humanitarian immigrants and asylum seekers. Yet annual temporary migrant intakes – international students, <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/WorkingHoliday">working holidaymakers</a> and temporary skilled workers – are <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1617/Quick_Guides/MigrationStatistics#_Table_2:_Temporary%20_and%20214,583%20Working%20Holiday%20Makers%20on%20417%20and%20462%20Visas">three times greater</a> than the permanent intake. <a href="https://docs.jobs.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/mwt_final_report.pdf">Over 800,000 temporary migrants</a> were in Australia in June 2018.</p>
<p>One key policy issue is the exploitation of temporary migrant workers. The Turnbull government abolished the 457 temporary skilled migration visa because of increasing <a href="https://theconversation.com/457-visa-changes-wont-impact-on-wider-temporary-education-workforce-and-maybe-thats-deliberate-76579">reports of abuse and exploitation by employers</a>.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2017/11/apo-nid120406-1162971.pdf">recent survey</a> of 4,332 temporary migrant workers found “increasing evidence of widespread exploitation of temporary migrant workers, including wage theft”. <a href="https://www.mwji.org/highlights/2017/11/14/report-released-wage-theft-in-australia-findings-of-the-national-temporary-migrant-work-survey%20and%20other%20abuses%20of%20workers%20rights">Half of all temporary migrant workers may be underpaid</a>. About one in three international students and backpackers earned $12 an hour or less – about half the minimum wage.</p>
<p>This issue goes not just to the ethics of maintaining a temporary migration program largely premised on migrant worker exploitation. It also resonates with Labor’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-05/labors-budget-reply-was-a-careful-pitch-to-voters/10973572">campaign for a living wage and the restoration of penalty rates</a> for workers in response to the low rate of real wage growth in Australia, which constrains consumer demand.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ultra-low-wage-growth-isnt-accidental-it-is-the-intended-outcome-of-government-policies-113357">Ultra low wage growth isn't accidental. It is the intended outcome of government policies</a>
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<p>The 2019-20 federal budget allocated extra funding to the Fair Work Ombudsman to bolster enforcement action against employers who exploit vulnerable workers and announced the National Labour Hire Registration Scheme to <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/migrant-workers-taskforce">target rogue operators in the labour hire industry</a>. However, the research suggests wage theft is widespread in the small business sector, a key target for tax relief in the budget. It is an area of immigration policy that requires considerably more resources and punch.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113557/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jock Collins receives funding for three research projects from the Australian Research Council</span></em></p>Immigration has featured as an issue in every Australian election since 2001. But the numbers often tell a different story from the political posturing.Jock Collins, Professor of Social Economics, UTS Business School, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/860092017-10-19T11:16:31Z2017-10-19T11:16:31ZGrattan on Friday: The rift between Brandis and Dutton deepens as the behemoth of Home Affairs rises<p>Immigration Minister Peter Dutton got a towelling from the Senate this week when he couldn’t reach a deal with the crossbench on his legislation to toughen requirements for people seeking Australian citizenship.</p>
<p>The bill was to impose a harder – many would say a ridiculously difficult – English test on those wanting to become Australians, and to require a longer waiting period.</p>
<p>The Senate gave Dutton a Wednesday night deadline to muster support or lose the bill from the notice paper. He offered some concessions but without success, and the bill dropped off – to return only if and when the numbers change. The minister says he’ll fight on.</p>
<p>Dutton had been sent a fresh message about the limits on his power. He doesn’t like such reminders. We know this from his attacks on court and tribunal rulings against his ministerial decisions, and his vitriol about lawyers who represent refugees and asylum seekers.</p>
<p>After he agreed with broadcaster <a href="http://www.2gb.com/podcast/peter-dutton-10/">Alan Jones</a> about the “un-Australian” behaviour of lawyers who frustrate government efforts to return people to Manus Island and Nauru following medical treatment, the ongoing deep rift between Dutton and Attorney-General George Brandis flared publicly earlier this month.</p>
<p>In a speech to the <a href="https://www.ibanet.org/Conferences/237358776.aspx">International Bar Association</a> Brandis said pointedly that “those who exercise executive power must always accept that they are subject to, and must always be respectful of, the supremacy of the law. And in that process, as the custodians of the rule of law, the role of lawyers is essential.”</p>
<p>Brandis didn’t name Dutton, but his target was clear.</p>
<p>Colleagues observe the palpable hostility between the two ministers, both from Queensland, as Brandis has recently been increasingly willing to assert small-l liberal positions (slapping down <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XExggl6Q-vo">Pauline Hanson</a> and <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-28/ssm-macklemore-nrl-grannd-final-abbott-brandis/8995490">Tony Abbott</a> as well as Dutton), and has in turn been the object of apparently antagonistic briefings to the tabloids.</p>
<p>As the new Home Affairs department that Dutton will head is being sewn together – including immigration and bringing under its umbrella ASIO, the Australian Federal Police, Border Force, the Criminal Intelligence Commission and AUSTRAC – it’s an open secret that Brandis (who loses ASIO but retains the power to sign its warrants), his department and some officials within the agencies are deeply apprehensive about it.</p>
<p>Some of their concerns may be reinforced by the picture painted a week ago by the new department’s secretary-designate, and current immigration secretary, Mike Pezzullo who, like Dutton, is seen as an empire builder who takes no prisoners.</p>
<p>Pezzullo, speaking to the Trans-Tasman Business Circle, spelled out Home Affairs’ “philosophical context”, and sent the message that it would be activist, intrusive (often secretly) and have long tentacles.</p>
<p>Pezzullo’s starting point was the “duality of good and evil” at the heart of globalisation.</p>
<p>On the “evil” side – the “dark universe” – “terror has become de-territorialised”, and global networks of crime and exploitation are becoming more apparent.</p>
<p>“There are global dark markets for hacking, money laundering, cryptocurrency movement, assumed identities for criminals, terrorists, child exploitation perpetrators and others,” he said.</p>
<p>In this context the security power, designed to protect the home front, “is being organised into a single enterprise to deal with the interconnected and globalised threats that we face at home”, in an era when “home” and “outside” blur.</p>
<p>“To protect and secure home, we have to be prepared to act globally and to develop networks with like-minded actors, including industry.”</p>
<p>The task requires wide and deep reach, with the department’s “facilitation” functions (migration, passenger services and the like) and security being the flip sides of the one coin.</p>
<p>“The state has to increasingly embed itself – not majestically, sitting at the apex of society dispensing justice – but the state has to embed itself invisibly into global networks and supply chains, and the virtual realm, in a seamless and largely invisible fashion, intervening on the basis of intelligence and risk settings. Increasingly, at super scale and at very high volumes,” Pezzullo said.</p>
<p>“Sometimes we’ll embed in a way that will be invisible to you [in business], because we’ll take data and we’ll put it with other data sources and then see, we’ll wash it and then we’ll come back with an intervention decision which might be ‘no one on that plane needs to be questioned’ or maybe ‘everyone does’, and you’ll go ‘yep, OK, whichever we have to do, we do’.”</p>
<p>The facilitation model requires “a public-private partnership model between Home Affairs and its component agencies and virtually every sector … whether it’s the banking system and talking to them about the active defence of their networks, whether it’s the infrastructure sector … utilities, power, water, etc, the air traffic control system,” he said.</p>
<p>“Home Affairs is going to be sort of the centre of excellence of figuring out how does Australia work. And we have to be careful about how we write this down, because when you then write the manual, how you take Australia down, there’ll be like one copy of that, and I’m not going to tell you where I’m going to keep that, because that’s going to be a very dangerous book!”</p>
<p>When the Home Affairs department was announced Malcolm Turnbull emphasised the checks on its power, which will be located especially in the attorney-general’s department.</p>
<p>But in government and administration, culture and attitudes can often be as important as formal restraints and oversight, and Pezzullo’s critics point to what happened to the culture after the integration of customs and immigration.</p>
<p>The old immigration department used to focus on the nation-building aspects of the people flow to Australia. Now, the dominant culture of the Immigration and Border Protection department is one focused on security, with a very disciplined, somewhat military overlay. </p>
<p>(Pezzullo has an intense interest in things military and was disappointed to miss out on the job of secretary of defence, for which he was well qualified, when it was recently up for grabs.)</p>
<p>As the Home Affairs behemoth looms, sharpening questions about what should be the limits on state intrusions, this week saw a paradoxical juxtaposition in relation to Australia’s role in and performance on human rights.</p>
<p>Australia <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=57901#.WeiMIROCzVo">was elected</a> to the United Nations Human Rights Council, a body to protect and promote human rights globally. At the same time, it was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/oct/19/unacceptable-un-committee-damns-australias-record-on-human-rights">robustly criticised</a> by the UN Human Rights Committee, a group of experts monitoring implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.</p>
<p>As the year’s end approaches, the speculation continues to be strong that Brandis will depart parliament in Turnbull’s summer reshuffle. There is no doubt that Turnbull – who is thick as thieves with Dutton – wants him out, not least to promote Mathias Cormann to Senate leader and (probably) Christian Porter to attorney-general.</p>
<p>The exit of Brandis would be one less frustration for Dutton. It’s ironic, but true, that the man who was lambasted for asserting the right for people to be bigots is at present the strongest voice in the cabinet for the protections of the rule of law.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/k27zv-7889f2?from=site&skin=1&share=1&fonts=Helvetica&auto=0&download=0" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86009/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>It’s ironic, but true, that the man who was lambasted for asserting the right for people to be bigots is at present the strongest voice in the cabinet for the protections of the rule of law.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/787632017-06-16T03:42:35Z2017-06-16T03:42:35ZAs Trump ups the ante, executive powers should worry Australians too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173481/original/file-20170613-9404-9z24qs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The executive government in Australia has more power than most people realise, especially when it comes to immigration.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/codydildy/2642025303/">Cody Austin/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This article is part of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/democracy-futures">Democracy Futures</a> series, a <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/democracy-futures/">joint global initiative</a> between The Conversation and the <a href="http://sydneydemocracynetwork.org/">Sydney Democracy Network</a>. The project aims to stimulate fresh thinking about the many challenges facing democracies in the 21st century.</em></p>
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<p>The US president’s executive powers are a crucial way to fast-track immigration policies without congressional approval. But with Donald Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-are-executive-orders-and-what-force-do-they-have-in-us-politics-72088">executive orders</a> barring entry to people from selected countries, these powers are taking on a new flavour.</p>
<p>While we like to think we live in a democracy with a strong separation of powers, in both Australia and the US the executive government has more power than most people realise – especially when it comes to immigration.</p>
<p>In some respects, executive powers are greater in Australia than in the US. In Australia, executive orders relating to immigration are not subject to the same checks and balances as they would be in the US. There are a few reasons for this. </p>
<h2>Differences in transparency</h2>
<p>In the US, all executive orders must be published in the <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/executive-orders">federal register</a>, the official journal of the federal government. This at least makes them visible to Congress and to the general public. </p>
<p>In Australia, there is no such obligation. A good <a href="https://theconversation.com/operation-sovereign-borders-dignified-silence-or-diminishing-democracy-21294">example of this</a> is the immigration minister’s 2013 order authorising “turn-back” operations against vessels carrying asylum seekers as part of Operation Sovereign Borders.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=363&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=456&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172209/original/file-20170605-31034-tq5vra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=456&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">As immigration minister, Scott Morrison wouldn’t release his order authorising turn-backs of asylum-seeker boats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_Australia#/media/File:Scott_Morrison_Malaysian_Maritime_Enforcement_Agency_2014.jpg">DFAT</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>The order was released only after a three-year <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/apr/03/details-of-australias-asylum-seeker-turnback-operations-released-in-foi-battle">Freedom of Information battle</a> initiated by Guardian journalist Paul Farrell. Even then, the details of the turn-back operations were redacted or not released on public interest grounds. </p>
<p>In Australia, the public and the courts may not even be aware of the orders being implemented. That means Australians are unable to scrutinise executive orders to the same extent as Americans can. This, in turn, limits the people’s ability to lodge effective legal actions against the government, as they lack the information to build a case. </p>
<h2>Australia lacks a bill of rights</h2>
<p>A second major difference is that Australia does not have a bill of rights, unlike the US. The US Bill of Rights is constitutionally entrenched as the first ten amendments to the US Constitution. </p>
<p>The success in striking down Trump’s recent executive orders relied upon two main provisions: the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment">Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause</a>, which requires a fair trial and prohibits the government indefinitely detaining people, and the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment">First Amendment Establishment Clause</a>, which has been interpreted as prohibiting discrimination based on religion. </p>
<p>Australia’s lack of such protections (constitutional or otherwise) stymies similar legal actions. Still, the Australian government can’t do whatever it wants with immigration. In the absence of legislative authorisation, actions of the executive will only be authorised to the extent they fall under the executive power set out in <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Senate/Powers_practice_n_procedures/Constitution/chapter2">Section 61</a> of the Australian Constitution. </p>
<p>However, the precise scope of this power remains a matter of contention. Judges have generally been highly deferential in terms of what immigration measures they uphold.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/high-court-asylum-case-pits-the-executive-against-the-judiciary-28956">The Tampa affair</a> in 2001 provides a good example. The MV Tampa, a Norwegian freighter, rescued 433 asylum seekers from a vessel in distress in international waters north of Australia. </p>
<p>When the captain attempted to bring them to Australia, the prime minister, John Howard, ordered special forces to storm the vessel. The asylum seekers were detained at sea for several weeks and later sent to Nauru and New Zealand. </p>
<p>While there was no legislative basis for this decision, the full bench of the Federal Court <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2001/1329.html">upheld</a> the action. The decision was based on a broad interpretation of executive powers in the constitution. The High Court has avoided a clear judgment on this issue in <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/2015/1.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=CPCF">subsequent decisions</a>.</p>
<h2>Trump tests limits of executive power</h2>
<p>In contrast, consider the fate of a series of <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-immigration-order-is-bad-foreign-policy-72053">executive orders</a> issued by President Trump. The most controversial include a 90-day travel ban on people from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, and a 120-day suspension of the refugee resettlement program. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/02/01/2017-02281/protecting-the-nation-from-foreign-terrorist-entry-into-the-united-states">original order</a>, issued just seven days after Trump’s inauguration, caused panic and chaos at airports all over the world.</p>
<p>Both measures were claimed to be necessary for the purpose of designing <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2016/08/16/politics/how-us-vets-immigrants-donald-trump-extreme-vetting/">“extreme vetting”</a> procedures to identify and exclude Islamic extremists. No evidence was provided to show how countries were selected, or why existing procedures were inadequate. Nor were the relevant government departments and agencies consulted in advance.</p>
<p>After just one week, the order was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-trumps-immigration-order-nationwide/2017/02/03/9b734e1c-ea54-11e6-bf6f-301b6b443624_story.html?utm_term=.9773dae7847a">suspended</a>. A federal judge in Washington state issued a temporary nationwide restraining order. </p>
<p>The decision was based on two constitutional concerns. The first related to due process considerations arising from barring entry to US visa holders without providing them with notice or a hearing. The second was rooted in the prohibition of discrimination based on religion. </p>
<p>While the executive order did not specifically say it targeted Muslims, the court put two and two together, and found the measures discriminatory. The countries subject to the ban were all principally Muslim, and during his campaign Trump had <a href="https://www.rt.com/usa/325046-trump-muslim-ban-usa/">promised</a> a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.</p>
<p>The Trump administration responded by issuing a <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/03/09/2017-04837/protecting-the-nation-from-foreign-terrorist-entry-into-the-united-states">new executive order</a>. This order provided more information justifying why nationals from the selected countries presented a heightened security risk. </p>
<p>The number of target countries was also reduced to six, with Iraq being removed, and permanent US residents were exempt. It was the inclusion of US residents in the original ban that had raised the most serious concerns about due process.</p>
<p>Despite these concessions, the courts also suspended the updated executive order. Appeals are <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-loses-appeal-but-travel-ban-fight-isnt-over-yet-72648">pending</a>. The outcome will depend on how the courts apply the long-standing “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/testing-federal-power-over-immigration/505232/">plenary power</a>” doctrine that gives the political branches a broad and largely exclusive authority over immigration. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"871143765473406976"}"></div></p>
<p>In the past, the courts have used this doctrine to uphold discriminatory immigration laws, which would have been unconstitutional in other contexts. This applies particularly to laws targeting immigrants who are outside the US. However, recent decisions indicate that the scope of the <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/36988/muslim-ban-held-unconstitutional-myth-unconstrained-immigration-power/">plenary power may be narrowing</a>.</p>
<p>Trump’s other executive orders on immigration have largely flown under the radar. <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30/2017-02095/border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvements">The Executive Order on Border Security</a> authorises construction of a wall on the Mexican border and <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/18/politics/kelly-guidance-on-immigration-and-border-security/">expands</a> the use of mandatory immigration detention. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2017/01/30/2017-02102/enhancing-public-safety-in-the-interior-of-the-united-states">The Executive Order on Interior Enforcement</a> punishes “<a href="http://time.com/4797381/texas-anti-sanctuary-city-bill-protests/">sanctuary cities</a>”, or municipalities that are unco-operative with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws. It also extends the list of non-citizens prioritised for deportation.</p>
<h2>Other than court action, what protections are there?</h2>
<p>In Australia, protections are provided first and foremost through parliamentary representation, an approach informed by Australia’s British constitutional history. </p>
<p>The government of the day sits in parliament with the assumption that an executive that fails to act in the interests of the public can be thrown out of office at the next general election. The Senate, which is not always dominated by the government of the day, can offer oversight as well.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, these protections don’t always work. New arrivals can’t vote. Even if they become citizens, refugees remain a minority and have little influence over election results. It’s also naive to assume that all waves of migrants operate as a cohesive voting bloc. </p>
<p>The immigration executive can also avoid Senate oversight. Operation Sovereign Borders again provides an instructive example. In 2013, citing national security concerns, the minister refused the Senate’s request for information. </p>
<p>Furthermore, as a result of the way that <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-australia-decides-who-is-a-genuine-refugee-72574">refugee politics</a> has unfolded in Australia, there is bipartisan support for draconian policies. The executive is unco-operative and the Senate does not always punish non-compliance. </p>
<p>For instance, when the minister refused to provide information about Operation Sovereign Borders, a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Public_Interest_Immunity/Report/index">Senate committee</a> recommended “political” and “procedural” penalties. None of these were carried out.</p>
<p>The parliament is also often willing to retrospectively authorise immigration-related actions once judicial proceedings have begun. This happened during the recent <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinodisp/au/cases/cth/HCA/2016/1.html?stem=0&synonyms=0&query=M68">High Court challenge</a> to the executive’s power to have asylum seekers detained on Nauru. </p>
<p>Once court proceedings were initiated, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2015A00104">legislation</a> was swiftly introduced with bipartisan support to retrospectively authorise the government’s action. A similar approach was taken to <a href="http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/news/tampa-affair-15-years">validate actions during the Tampa affair</a>.</p>
<p>So, as the world reacts with shock each time Trump issues another far-reaching executive order, it is worth remembering that the use of executive power in Australia is, in many ways, more expansive and unchecked than in the US. This is not limited to immigration. Australian courts have been willing to take an expansive view of executive power in a <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/%7E/%7E/link.aspx?_id=C8C131542382464EB28135A33F9EA201&_z=z">whole host of policy areas</a>.</p>
<p>Both the Australian and the US public need to remain vigilant. Tolerance of the executive’s attack on the rights of non-citizens threatens to pave the way for similar action against citizens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Boucher receives funding from the Australian Research Council that is unassociated with this current article. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Ghezelbash 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>Under US law, the president must publish all of their executive orders for public view. The Australian government is under no such obligation.Anna Boucher, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Political Science, University of SydneyDaniel Ghezelbash, Lecturer, Macquarie Law School, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/722472017-02-07T03:40:16Z2017-02-07T03:40:16ZHistory shows Trump will face legal challenges to detaining immigrants<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/155762/original/image-20170206-27197-1skave0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests after death of a 36-year-old woman in custody at immigration detention facility in Arizona.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo, File</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump has followed through on his promise to <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-immigration-policies-will-pick-up-where-obamas-left-off-70187">ramp up</a> immigrant detention as part of immigration enforcement. His <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/25/executive-order-border-security-and-immigration-enforcement-improvements">executive order</a> on border security and immigration describes a “new normal” that will include the detention of immigrants while they await removal hearings and removal.</p>
<p>Trump’s order expressly announces the end of “catch and release” of undocumented immigrants after their apprehension, which allowed them to post a bond and be released from detention while their removal proceedings moved forward.</p>
<p>Rather than doing something new, President Trump is simply expanding the use of immigrant detention. Immigrant detention has long been a tool in the arsenal of the U.S. government in immigration enforcement. It goes as far back as the detention of Chinese immigrants on <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130380169">Angel Island in San Francisco Bay</a>, which began processing immigrants in the late 1800s. Detention of immigrants as a method of immigration enforcement saw an upswing at the tail end of the 20th century. In the 1980s, President Reagan’s administration used detention to discourage Central Americans, thousands of whom were fleeing civil wars, from migrating to the United States.</p>
<p>Other groups have also been detained on a broad scale. Several U.S. presidents responded to mass <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1146031.html">migrations</a> of Cubans in the 1980s, who came in the Mariel boatlift, and <a href="http://openjurist.org/919/f2d/549/orantes-hernandez-v-thornburgh">Haitians</a> fleeing political violence, with detention. </p>
<p>The Obama administration still allowed for noncitizens to bond out of custody while their removal proceedings were pending. But it also employed immigrant detention liberally – including the mass detention of Central American families. Obama set records for the number of removals during his first term.</p>
<p>The long history of detention has an equally long history of legal challenges. These are likely to continue in the Trump administration, which has made detention a cornerstone of its immigration enforcement plan.</p>
<h2>History of immigrant detention</h2>
<p>Courts have regularly been asked to intervene to curb the excesses of immigrant detention.</p>
<p>In 1989, during the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and later George H.W. Bush, a class action lawsuit was brought against the U.S. government by asylum applicants from El Salvador and Guatemala in <a href="http://openjurist.org/919/f2d/549/orantes-hernandez-v-thornburgh">Orantes-Hernandez v. Thornburgh</a>. In class actions, a group of similarly situated persons band together to challenge a policy or practice.</p>
<p>In this case, the asylum applicants challenged mass immigrant detention and various policies that violated their right to counsel. The court found that the U.S. government had been transferring Central American asylum seekers from major urban areas where they could readily secure counsel to remote locations where they could not. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a broad injunction barring the U.S. government from restricting access to counsel.</p>
<p>The Orantes-Hernandez decision was the culmination of a coordinated <a href="http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/conlr29&id=1657">litigation strategy</a> pursued by public interest lawyers to challenge the U.S. government’s treatment of Central American asylum seekers. Leading immigrant rights advocates, along with private law firms doing the legal work pro bono, planned the suits and divided up the work.</p>
<p>In a 1991 case, <a href="http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/760/796/1421304/">American Baptist Churches v. Thornburgh</a>, the executive branch settled a suit brought by Salvadorans and Guatemalans. The plaintiffs claimed the U.S. government was biased against their asylum claims because the U.S. was allied with the governments in power in those countries. The settlement required the U.S. government to hear again the asylum claims of more than 100,000 Central Americans. </p>
<p>This line of litigation ultimately contributed to legislative reform. </p>
<p>In 1990, <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/101st-congress/senate-bill/358">Congress passed legislation</a> that created <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-immigration-policies-will-pick-up-where-obamas-left-off-70187">Temporary Protected Status</a> for noncitizens who fled the violent conditions in El Salvador, and additional countries designated by the president. Temporary Protected Status has permitted thousands of noncitizens to remain in the United States until the violence has calmed.</p>
<p>Despite these successful challenges, the use of detention in immigration enforcement increased with the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/American-Gulag-Inside-Immigration-Prisons/dp/0520246691">immigration reforms of 1996</a>. Immigrant detention continues to be criticized – and litigated. For example, in response to an increase in women and children fleeing widespread violence in Central America, the Obama administration began detaining thousands of unaccompanied minors and entire families.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12780774456837741811&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarre=12780774456837741811&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr">Flores v. Lynch</a> in 2016, the Ninth Circuit stated the detention of Central American minors was not required by law. However, the court did not protect parents from detention in the same way.</p>
<h2>Class action for reform</h2>
<p>U.S. immigration agencies have proved resistant to change. In an empirical study of immigration litigation in the 1980s, Professor Peter Schuck of Yale and attorney Theodore Wang <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1228986?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">concluded</a> that the success of immigrants in class actions suggest the U.S. government’s immigration agencies are uncompromising. They are enforcement-oriented to a fault, they said.</p>
<p>Recent years have continued to see challenges to immigration detention. In <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/jennings-v-rodriguez/">Jennings v. Rodriguez</a>, the Supreme Court currently has before it a class action raising the question of whether immigrants, like virtually all U.S. citizens placed in criminal detention, must be guaranteed a bond hearing and possible release from custody. This case challenges, on constitutional and statutory grounds, lengthy immigration detentions without any opportunity for release.</p>
<p>Detention appears as if will be an important part of Trump’s immigration enforcement plan. As historically has been the case, legal challenges will almost certainly follow.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/72247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A short history of legal challenges to immigrant detention practices in the U.S. may shed light on what’s to come for the new administration.Kevin Johnson, Dean and Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597902016-05-23T03:43:17Z2016-05-23T03:43:17ZPoliticians trashing immigrants and refugees are the real danger to social cohesion<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/123458/original/image-20160522-9534-1632axq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There is little evidence that support for multiculturalism is directly tied to support for particular levels of immigration.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dean Lewins</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a bid to defend Immigration Minister Peter Dutton following his <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/05/17/refugees-will-take-australian-jobs--dutton.html">controversial comments</a> on refugees, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/the-truth-is-our-successful-multicultural-society-is-built-on-secure-borders-20160519-goz3ro.html">Fairfax op-ed</a> made unjustifiable claims about the relationship between his government’s multicultural policy, Australia being a multicultural society, and stopping the boats.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s op-ed contained four serious implications:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>that public support for multiculturalism as a policy for settlement and social cohesion solely depends on governments demonstrating control of borders; </p></li>
<li><p>that there are only costs associated with refugees (which “we do not begrudge”);</p></li>
<li><p>that the threat to multiculturalism comes only from unauthorised asylum seeker arrivals and any increase in authorised numbers that would overwhelm settlement services; and </p></li>
<li><p>that Australia is “the most successful and harmonious multicultural nation in the world”.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Each of these propositions is disingenuous and misleading.</p>
<h2>Does multiculturalism depend on ‘strong borders’?</h2>
<p>The issues of multiculturalism and immigration <a href="http://scanlonfoundation.org.au/australians-support-immigration-multiculturalism-national-social-cohesion-research-shows/">need to be separated</a>. There is evidence uncontrolled borders erode community support for large immigration numbers. However, there is <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/FlagPost/2015/October/Mapping_Social_Cohesion_survey">little evidence</a> that support for multiculturalism is directly tied to support for particular levels of immigration.</p>
<p>Multiculturalism is a process of settlement and the building of mutual respect, not a basis for admission into the country. Support for multiculturalism in Australia <a href="http://scanlonfoundation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DiscussionPaperMulticulturalismFINAL.pdf">hovers at about 80% currently</a>, even while support for high immigration levels rises or falls in relation to the perceived control governments have over national borders. </p>
<p><a href="https://andrewjakubowicz.com/publications/antiracism1998/">Research dating back to 1998</a> demonstrates that Australian support for multiculturalism remains well above 50% – unless people become anxious that multiculturalism will cause them specific harm.</p>
<h2>Costs</h2>
<p>The costs associated with the settlement of refugees are significant. </p>
<p>However, the additional costs the <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/labors-refugee-intake-strains-budget-pm/news-story/59a42b0cca767901d47a7746cdc2fcb1">government claims</a> an increased refugee intake would generate are tiny. Labor, which is promising to <a href="http://www.alp.org.au/asylumseekers">lift the intake</a> from 13,750 to 27,000 by 2025, points out there would be no change in numbers until the fourth year of the forward estimates, and then only small numbers. At a A$17 million difference, it would hardly destroy the budget.</p>
<p>Even then, this addition at the margins would be well offset by the impact of refugees’ high propensity to consume, with its multiplier effects through the economy. They tend to <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/completed/migration-population/report/migrationandpopulation.pdf">spend nearly everything they get</a> in their first few years in Australia. Begrudging the investment would be foolhardy given the benefits it generates. </p>
<p>Settlement services throughout Australia have been developing new strategies to engage with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-ups-its-syrian-refugee-intake-but-what-about-its-own-backyard-47160">one-off intake</a> of 12,000 refugees fleeing the conflict in the Middle East. </p>
<p>NSW Premier Mike Baird <a href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases-premier/peter-shergold-coordinate-resettlement">has appointed</a> a co-ordinator-general for refugee resettlement, Peter Shergold. Early reports suggest a greater level of integrated service planning and delivery <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-23/syrian-refugee-crisis-nsw-government-launches-register/6798842">than has ever happened before</a>. This is generating higher efficiencies, greater community, institutional and business buy-in, and a more productive system unlikely to be overwhelmed by the intake Labor proposes.</p>
<h2>Threats</h2>
<p>While support for high levels of immigration has been more varied, the real killer for multiculturalism is the anxiety factor about the perceived threat of cultural diversity versus the perceived benefits. </p>
<p>The last time this was seriously tested was in 2007. Then-immigration minister Kevin Andrews announced, just before the election, the slashing of the <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/refugee-cut-not-racist/2007/10/03/1191091178266.html">African refugee intake</a>. In another exacerbation of community anxiety, he claimed Africans apparently integrated poorly into Australia.</p>
<p>This was not only wrong – African young men were the target of racist violence, not the perpetrators – and insulting, but it <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/african-australians-project-australia-s-migration-policies-african-dimensionsaustralia">shifted public opinion away</a> from support for immigration and multiculturalism. </p>
<p>Tony Abbott repeated this <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/17/tony-abbotts-rhetoric-on-muslims-is-damaging-and-dangerous">in relation to Muslims</a>. Senior politicians traducing the reputation of immigrants does more to erode support for multiculturalism than do uncontrolled borders.</p>
<h2>Is Australian multiculturalism the world’s best?</h2>
<p>There are two major indices that test this proposition. The Migrant Integration Policy Index (<a href="http://www.mipex.eu/australia">MIPEX</a>) covers 28 countries. The Multiculturalism Policy Index (<a href="http://www.queensu.ca/mcp/">MCP</a>) covers 21 countries. It contains three elements – immigrants, indigenous minorities and national minorities.</p>
<p>The 2014 MIPEX places Australia eighth out of 28 countries, marking it down on family reunion and other human rights issues. This is a more rigorous and extensive index. Its results do not support Turnbull’s claims. </p>
<p>The 2010 MCP immigrants list, which was undertaken during the Labor government and therefore not adjusted for changes under the Coalition, placed Australia at the top of the list with a “perfect” score. However, its indigenous minorities list of nine countries placed Australia fifth.</p>
<p>The Coalition <a href="https://theconversation.com/election-2016-the-most-exciting-time-to-be-multicultural-in-australia-59052">specifically opposes</a> key multicultural policy initiatives. It abolished (under John Howard) and now opposes an Office for Multicultural Affairs. It opposes and refuses even to discuss a Multiculturalism Act. But its multiculturalism minister, Craig Laundy, has identified the main advisory body, the Australian Multicultural Council, as unrepresentative and requiring change.</p>
<p>Finally, the Coalition has no plans to re-establish a policy–linked research capacity outside the limited program inside the Department of Social Services. This is despite its members <a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_committees?url=mig/multiculturalism/report.htm">supporting this move</a> in opposition. </p>
<p>Turnbull was more correct to say governments that lose “control” of their borders see a decline in support for higher immigration levels. But to lose support for multiculturalism, governments have to trash the reputation of refugees, raise community anxiety and watch while they trigger the added complication of fragmentation in community cohesion.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59790/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Prof Andrew Jakubowicz works at the University of Technology Sydney, a federal government funded educational institution. He receives funding from the ARC, the Human Rights Commission and VicHealth for research into cyber racism. He was appointed by the NSW Baird Government to the Advisory Board of MulticulturalNSW in 2015, where he chairs the South Sydney Regional Advisory Council, which includes the Sutherland Shire. He does not speak for MulticulturalNSW. </span></em></p>Senior politicians slurring the reputation of immigrants does more to erode support for multiculturalism than do uncontrolled borders.Andrew Jakubowicz, Professor of Sociology, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/597032016-05-19T19:37:54Z2016-05-19T19:37:54ZGrattan on Friday: Labor loses skin on border issue, but Turnbull will pay a price too<p>Anticipation is core business for political strategists. Last year Bill Shorten and those around him correctly judged Labor was electorally exposed on border protection, and they had the ALP national conference change party policy to allow turnbacks.</p>
<p>What they didn’t anticipate was how vulnerable Labor would remain on the issue. They thought the “unity ticket” they were presenting between government and opposition on borders would minimise the trouble. They also believed the moderate Malcolm Turnbull would not want to go really hard on the issue. These assumptions turned out to be flawed.</p>
<p>The Coalition’s scare on border protection, which has run strongly in the campaign’s first two weeks, is multi-pronged. It includes tallying Labor MPs and candidates who’ve expressed strong or mild concern about the official line; fanning fears about boats restarting under Shorten; attacking other parties’ advocacy of a bigger refugee intake; and whipping up resentment over how much asylum seekers cost the taxpayer.</p>
<p>In an interview with 2GB’s Ray Hadley on Thursday, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton constructed a cluster bomb to make his point that Shorten would be weak on border security.</p>
<p>“The Australian public supports us in kicking out people that have committed crimes here, of cancelling visas to paedophiles, drug dealers, murderers … That’s the work that I’ve been doing over the course of the last couple of years and I very strongly believe that the threat coming across our borders, when you look at what’s happened in Brussels and Paris, the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere, this is a bigger issue at this election than it’s ever been,” Dutton said.</p>
<p>“And that’s why I think the prime minister has demonstrated leadership and I think Mr Shorten cannot even get to first base … he wouldn’t be able to stop people smugglers because of the division within his own party.”</p>
<p>After Hadley told Dutton that his dinner companions had said “more Peter Duttons” were needed, Dutton assured his audience Turnbull was “rock solid” on the border issue. One might have idly wondered who was running whom in the relationship between prime minister and minister.</p>
<p>Turnbull has tweaked the message into something more sophisticated, but he is on board. As well as describing his minister as “outstanding”, Turnbull accused Shorten of “demonising” Dutton – who is a pretty deft hand at the demonising game himself, especially when he mentions the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young.</p>
<p>In Dutton’s Queensland seat of Dickson, GetUp is launching a campaign against him, with door-knocking, phone banks, and media messages. On a comfortable 6.7% margin Dutton won’t be too worried, unlike a few years ago when he unsuccessfully tried to flee to another seat because he feared Dickson would fall (it didn’t). Indeed, his macho performances as immigration minister may bring him votes.</p>
<p>Turnbull’s Howard-not-so-lite approach will upset many in the migrant community, and in the so-called “doctors’ wives” areas. It would be interesting to know what they think of it in his Wentworth electorate. Those on the progressive centre-right who invested such hope in him, thinking he was different, will be further dismayed.</p>
<p>But Turnbull’s “rock solid” stand is likely to play well in Queensland and Western Australia in particular. One Liberal MP, a moderate, says of border protection: “It’s a massive issue across Australia”.</p>
<p>Some Labor sources, however, say it has slipped down the ranks of people’s concerns and voters recognise there’s bipartisanship. So to stir the old feelings the government has to go really hard, as Dutton is doing.</p>
<p>As the Coalition ramps up the scare it is worth considering how similar or different are the positions of the two sides.</p>
<p>The government turns back boats, and Labor says it would do so.</p>
<p>The Coalition claims Shorten wouldn’t be able to sustain a policy of turnbacks because of internal division. Labor can point to the conference decision, the authority Shorten would have as prime minister, and the fact that opponents of the policy would be in a minority in caucus.</p>
<p>Both sides back offshore processing. The ALP promises a more transparent approach and says it would find third countries to resettle refugees from Manus and Nauru. The government has been highly secretive about the offshore centres, suppressing as much information as it can. Its search for third countries has produced only a farcical deal with Cambodia. But Labor has not been convincing in arguing it would be more successful.</p>
<p>On refugees, Labor wants the annual humanitarian number to be 27,000 by 2025; the government is committed to 18,750 by 2018-19.</p>
<p>There are some differences between government and opposition on asylum seeker/refugee policy, however they are nowhere near as great as Turnbull would have people believe, and to assert Shorten couldn’t deliver a strong border protection policy doesn’t make it true.</p>
<p>But the fact remains that while Labor has gone into this campaign on the front foot in a range of policy areas, on border control it finds itself in its customary default position – on the defensive.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/2dj4i-5f571a?from=yiiadmin" data-link="https://www.podbean.com/media/player/2dj4i-5f571a?from=yiiadmin" height="100" width="100%" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" data-name="pb-iframe-player"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59703/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>Anticipation is core business for political strategists. Last year Bill Shorten and those around him correctly judged Labor was electorally exposed on border protection.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/504582015-11-12T19:21:12Z2015-11-12T19:21:12ZSpeaking with: Shanthi Robertson and Ien Ang on migrants, refugees and Australia’s place in Asia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101530/original/image-20151111-21195-1d4ifc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=78%2C0%2C1113%2C900&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Australia's policies on asylum seekers have been criticised by many countries at the UN's Human Rights Council.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Immigration</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Australia’s refugee and border protection policies have been in the spotlight again this week as riots broke out at the Christmas Island detention centre following the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-08/asylum-seeker-who-escaped-christmas-island-dies/6922666">unexplained death of an escaped asylum seeker</a>. </p>
<p>The incident happened just prior to a review of Australia’s human rights record at the UN <a href="https://theconversation.com/un-review-puts-australia-on-the-spot-over-human-rights-record-50389">Human Rights Council</a>. Many countries criticised Australia’s tough stance on asylum seekers, and called on the government to end its policy of boat turnbacks, mandatory detention and offshore processing. </p>
<p>These are the latest episodes in Australia’s long and turbulent history with immigration. From the White Australia policy to Vietnamese refugees to the current turning back of boats, the treatment of migrants and refugees has long been controversial and divisive in Australia. </p>
<p>Dallas Rogers spoke with Shanthi Robertson and Ien Ang about national identities and the role migrants, refugees and borders will play in Australia during the so-called Asian century.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/speaking-with.../id934267338">Subscribe</a> to The Conversation’s Speaking With podcasts on iTunes, or <a href="http://tunein.com/radio/Speaking-with---The-Conversation-Podcast-p671452/">follow</a> on Tunein Radio.</em></p>
<p>Music from Free Music Archive: <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_01_Night_Owl">Night Owl by Broke For Free</a>, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Alasdair_Cooper/2044">2044 by Alasdair Cooper</a>, <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chan_Wai_Fat/Children_of_Soul_Mountain/05_dream">Dream (instrumental) by Chan Wai Fat</a>, and <a href="http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Lo_Ka_Ping/Lost_Sounds_of_the_Tao/lokapingtealsmp3">Lo Ka Ping</a>.</p>
<p>Additional audio: BBC News, RN Breakfast (ABC Radio National), Q&A (ABC TV), RT News, Reuters, Department of Immigration and Border Protection, ABC Lateline, The Australian Government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50458/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dallas Rogers receives funding from the Community Broadcasting Foundation to produce short academic interviews for SoundMinds Radio (<a href="http://www.soundminds.com.au">www.soundminds.com.au</a>). Shorter segments of these interviews were played on community radio on 03/11/2015. </span></em></p>Dallas Rogers speaks with Shanthi Robertson and Ien Ang about the role migrants, refugees and the border will play in Australia during the Asian century.Dallas Rogers, Urban Studies Lecturer, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/481622015-09-28T09:30:13Z2015-09-28T09:30:13ZJulian Burnside: What sort of country are we?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96357/original/image-20150928-17736-lnbmqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C101%2C1931%2C1225&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Julian Burnside at a hearing during the Tampa case in 2001.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/John Hargest</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>This piece is based on the 2015 Hamer Oration, delivered by Julian Burnside on September 28, 2015.</em></p>
<p>It was with some surprise that I found myself engaged in such a hotly political issue as refugee policy. I had never been involved in politics, nor interested in it. My best explanation of how this happened lies in a story I heard a long time ago. It involves a family whose ten-year-old son had never spoken a word. The parents had passed from anxiety to despair to resignation: there was no organic reason for his silence.</p>
<p>One morning, as a novelty, the mother decided to serve porridge at breakfast. She had never served it before. </p>
<p>The ten-year-old took a spoonful of porridge, looked up sharply and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think porridge is revolting. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>His parents were astonished. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It’s a miracle! You can speak! Why haven’t you spoken before this?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everything has been satisfactory until now.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Tampa, refugees and the collapse of values</h2>
<p>The arrival of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tampa_affair">Tampa</a> in Australian waters was misrepresented to the public as a threat to our national sovereignty. The people on Tampa were rescued at the request of the Australian government. They comprised for the most part terrified Hazaras from Afghanistan, fleeing the Taliban. The Taliban’s regime was universally recognised as one of the most brutal and repressive in recent times.</p>
<p>The notion that a handful of terrified, persecuted men, women and children fleeing such a regime could constitute a threat to our national sovereignty is so bizarre that it defies discussion. </p>
<p>I was shocked to see Australia’s response to Tampa. The government denied the Tampa’s request to land is bedraggled cargo in Australia; it sent the SAS onto the ship. 438 men, women and children were held on the deck in the tropical sun, day after day. I knew nothing about our refugee policy, but I knew it was wrong to treat human beings that way.</p>
<p>By the time the case was over, I knew a lot more about refugee policy, and a lot more about the Australian character. I knew that it was not possible to stay in this country unless I tried to do something to combat these obvious injustices. It was my great “porridge moment”. On August 26, 2001, MV Tampa rescued 438 people whose boat, the Palapa, had sunk. It rescued them at Australia’s request. It acted according to the tradition of sailors the world over.</p>
<p>The people rescued by Tampa were, mostly, terrified Hazaras from Afghanistan: men, women and children. They were fleeing the Taliban. We knew all this. We also knew that the Taliban were a brutal and repressive regime. We knew that Hazaras, one of the three ethnic groups in Afghanistan, had been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/dec/17/resurgent-taliban-targets-afghan-hazara-as-australia-sends-them-back">persecuted</a> for centuries, but that the persecution had become increasingly harsh under the Taliban who come from the Pashtun ethnic group.</p>
<p>The captain of Tampa asked for medical help. Many of the women and children were ill or injured. When Tampa entered Australian territorial waters off Christmas Island, Australia sent the SAS and took control of the ship at gunpoint to prevent the refugees from coming ashore. </p>
<p>The arrival of the Tampa in Australian waters was misrepresented to the public as a threat to our national sovereignty. The notion that 438 terrified, persecuted men, women and children constitute a threat to national sovereignty is so bizarre that it defies discussion. </p>
<p>The idea that Prime Minister John Howard could revive his flagging prospects for re-election by using the SAS to keep those people from safety reflected a profound malaise in the Australian character.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2001/1329.html">judgment</a> in the Tampa case was handed down at 2.15PM Eastern Standard Time on September 11, 2001, nine hours before the terrorist attack on America. From that moment, the government ran two different ideas together: border control and security. The catch-cry “border protection” confuses national security with refugee policy. In that confusion we lost our moral bearings.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96348/original/image-20150928-17733-1iksp9j.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">The government denied the Tampa’s request to land is bedraggled cargo in Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Wallenius Wilhelmsen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Pacific Solution is born</h2>
<p>During the Tampa litigation, the Howard government cobbled together the Pacific Solution. It is hard to believe, but the first incarnation of the Pacific Solution, terrible though it was, was more benign than the present version. </p>
<p>But it had its victims. One of them was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/11/australia.immigration">Mohammad Sarwar</a>. </p>
<p>On August 26, 2002, the Afghans who had been rescued by Tampa were preparing to commemorate the 12-month anniversary of their rescue. That morning, Sarwar woke, sat up, uttered two short cries and fell back dead.</p>
<p>His friends wrote to us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We regret to inform you that in early morning of 26th August Mohammad Sarwar ID NO 391 an Afghan Tampa Asylum Seeker died.He was quite young and seemed to be in his mid 20s. He was a Hazara from Central Afghanistan. He was one of the 438 asylum seekers who were rescued from ocean by the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa. He spent almost one year on board the Tampa and Manoora and in detention on Nauru. He was hospitalised in Nauru for the first few weeks on Nauru.</p>
<p>He was refused refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Just a few days earlier to his death he was interviewed on his appeal to the negative decision he had received on his claim for protection. His close associates, who had seen him coming out of the interview room, had seen he was very concerned and unhappy for the ways he was asked question. In the recent weeks he was seen to be stressed, worried, depressed and almost isolated. But Mohammad Sarwar was proved to be a voiceless, quiet and would speak very little of his concerns and pains he might be suffering. Recently, he was seen sitting alone and thinking very deeply. </p>
<p>Eventually, he has sought the asylum only God can grant.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both Australia and Nauru refused to conduct an autopsy. </p>
<p>At the time Sarwar died, the Australian government was forcing and cajoling Afghans to return to their country. Sarwar’s family asked that his corpse be returned to Kabul. Australia refused, saying it was unsafe to return a corpse to Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Sarwar was an early victim of the Pacific Solution. Another was Australia’s character.</p>
<h2>Terror</h2>
<p>In the wake of 9/11, the government sent a care package to every Australian household. It included a fridge magnet – a sure protection against terrorism – and a letter from Howard. The letter included this observation:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dear Fellow Australian, </p>
<p>I’m writing to you because I believe you and your family should know more about some key issues affecting the security of our country and how we can all play a part in protecting our way of life.</p>
<p>As a people we have traditionally engaged the world optimistically … our open, friendly nature makes us welcome guests and warm hosts.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Don Watson wrote about this:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This rose-coloured boasting smells of some nightmare ministry of information … the phrase as a people might not be a lie, but it smells like one. And it sits askew to the element of conservative political philosophy that opposes all attempts to categorise people by class or historic tendency, or any other conceit that will serve as an excuse for eliminating them. </p>
<p>The people of Australia is not so rank because it does not carry the suggestion that some mythic or historic force unites us in our destiny. But if we must have as a people, then traditionally has to go, and not only because optimistically is sitting on top of it. It has to go because it is so at odds with Australian history it could be reasonably called a lie. </p>
<p>Traditionally we built barriers against the world we are alleged to have engaged so optimistically; traditionally we clung to the mother country for protection against that same world; traditionally … we took less of an optimistic view of the world than an ironic, fatalistic view of the world. </p>
<p>The smugness of the sentence about our being lovely guests and warm hosts is so larded by fantasy and self-delusion, it transcends Neighbours and becomes Edna Everage. </p>
<p>It will occur to some readers, surely, that it has been our nature recently to play very cold hosts to uninvited guests, the sort of people we don’t want here, who throw their children into the sea, who are not fun-loving, welcoming, warm, sunny, etc.</p>
<p>Given (our) recent history, we might wonder if the words are as ingenuous as they sound. The thought, even the subconscious thought, might have been of a piece with Medea’s “soft talk”. Thus – as a people Australians are very nice; people who don’t agree with this proposition are not nice people; people who are not nice are not Australians in the sense of Australians as a people. People who are not prepared to be Australian as a people should shut up or piss off back where they came from.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is the problem: by our response to boat people since August 2001, we may have redefined our national character. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96352/original/image-20150928-17708-1ksceas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Howard government set up the ‘Pacific Solution’ for dealing with boat arrivals.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Laura Friezer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Hamidi</h2>
<p>Mr Hamidi had fled Saddam Hussein’s regime. Within a couple of weeks of his arrival in detention in Australia, officers of the Immigration Department noted that he had suffered torture in Iraq at the notorious Abu Ghraib Prison and that the form of torture which most frightened him was being locked in a small room. In Abu Ghraib, he had regularly been held in a small cell where he was randomly electrocuted through water in the floor. </p>
<p>After about 15 or 18 months in detention, he fell into hopelessness and despair. It is typical for asylum seekers in Australia’s detention system to lose hope after about 15 or 18 months. When Mr Hamidi fell into hopelessness, he started self-harming. Whenever he could find a bit of broken glass or a bit of razor wire, he would cut himself. </p>
<p>When he cut himself, the Immigration Department did two things: they gave him Panadol (which seems to be the universal treatment in immigration detention) and they put him in solitary confinement – in a small cell. This did not help him. </p>
<p>After a couple of weeks in solitary confinement, he would come out even more desperate than when he went in. He would then harm himself again and the Department would give him Panadol and solitary confinement. This went on for five years. </p>
<p>Eventually, some lawyers in Adelaide took a case to the Federal Court of Australia seeking an order requiring that Mr Hamidi, and some others in similarly desperate circumstances, should be taken to the Glenside psychiatric hospital in Adelaide for assessment and, if necessary, for treatment. The Commonwealth resisted the application and fought the case for several weeks. Eventually, the judge determined that the detainees should be sent to Glenside for assessment and if necessary for treatment. </p>
<p>When Mr Hamidi was taken to Glenside he was assessed mentally and physically. The physical assessment showed that he had ten metres of scarring on his body from his self-harming in Immigration Detention. He subsequently got a protection visa, but his health is ruined. Saddam Hussein tried to kill him and failed. Australia tried to incapacitate him and succeeded. Chance bludgeoned him almost to death. </p>
<h2>One girl</h2>
<p>There was the case which, for me at least, forever changed my view of this lucky country. It concerned an Iranian family – mother, father and two daughters aged 11 and seven at the relevant time. They were members of a small, pre-Christian religion: a religion which, in Iran, is regarded as unclean. If ever you think chance has dealt you a bad hand, try being a member of a religion which is regarded as unclean. There are plenty of historical precedents which show what a hard time those people get. </p>
<p>This family stayed on in Iran for as long as they could bear it, because their parents and grandparents were buried there. But one day, after a shocking incident involving the 11-year-old, the family fled Iran and ended up in detention at Woomera.</p>
<p>After about 15 or 18 months, all of them were in a bad way but especially the 11-year-old. The 11-year-old girl had stopped caring for herself: she had stopped grooming herself, she had stopped brushing her hair; she was careless with her clothing; she had stopped eating. She was frightened to go to the toilet block, which was about 100 metres from their cabin, and she would wet the bed at night and wet her clothing during the day. </p>
<p>Back then, if you were held in Woomera and had serious psychiatric needs, you would get to see the visiting psychiatrist approximately once every six months. The 11 year-old-girl needed daily psychiatric help. A psychiatrist from Adelaide, who had heard about the case, went to Woomera and delivered a report to the Immigration Department saying that it was essential that the family be removed from Woomera and placed in a metropolitan detention centre so that the 11-year-old could get daily psychiatric help. The report emphasised that the child was at extreme risk.</p>
<p>Eventually, the Department agreed to move the family from Woomera in the South Australian desert to Maribyrnong in the western suburbs of Melbourne. There, although the purpose for moving them was that the 11-year-old should get daily psychiatric help, for the first two and a half weeks of their stay nobody came to see her: not a psychiatrist, not a psychologist, not a doctor, not a nurse, not a social worker – nobody at all. It was as if they hadn’t even arrived.</p>
<p>On a Sunday night in May 2002, while her mother and father and young sister were up in the mess hall having their evening meal, this little girl alone in their cell in Maribyrnong Detention Centre took a bedsheet and hanged herself. But she was only little and didn’t know how to tie the knot properly, so she was still strangling when the family came back from dinner. They took her down and she and her mother were taken straight away to the general hospital nearby. They were accompanied by two ACM guards so that, as a matter of legal analysis, they were still in Immigration Detention. </p>
<p>Kon from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, who had been looking after the family’s visa application, heard about the incident and went to the hospital at about 9.30 that night. He said hello to the guards, who know him well because he is a regular visitor of Maribyrnong. He said he just wanted to speak to the mother to see if there was anything he could do to help. They said: “No you’re not allowed to see them, because lawyers’ visiting hours in Immigration Detention are nine to five” and they sent him away. Kon then rang me at home and told me what had happened. </p>
<p>Are we a country which treats children that way? Apparently we are. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96353/original/image-20150928-17733-10n6cau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Woomera detention centre in South Australia hosted hundreds of detainees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The 2013 election</h2>
<p>By 2008 the boats had virtually stopped arriving. In July 2008, the first Rudd government introduced a number of <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-govt-softens-asylum-seeker-laws-20080728-3mgo.html">reforms</a> to the Migration Act which satisfied about 90% of the concerns of refugee advocates. A while later, however, chance played another wild card: Tony Abbott became opposition leader by one vote. </p>
<p>As soon as he became opposition leader, Abbott began complaining publicly and loudly about boat people. Kevin Rudd responded by mounting a ferocious attack on people smugglers. It seems that in the heat of the moment he had forgotten that his <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-essays-kevin-rudd-faith-politics--300">moral hero</a> – Dietrich Bonhoeffer – had been a people smuggler, albeit a benevolent one. He had forgotten, it seems, that Oskar Schindler and Gustav Schroeder, the Captain of the St Louis, were both people smugglers. </p>
<p>When Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister, she ran a very ambivalent line about boat people. While expressing some concern for the circumstances which led them to flee, she said that she understood why Australians were concerned about boat people arriving in Australia. The asylum seeker debate went off on a new tack at about that time. </p>
<p>The lowpoint of the debate was seen in the campaign that preceded the federal election of September 2013. That election campaign, for the first time in Australia’s political history, saw both major parties try to outbid each other in their promises of cruelty to boat people. </p>
<p>Abbott won the election and made good of his promise to mistreat boat people. We now have the harshest imaginable policies in relation to boat people and arguably the harshest treatment of boat people of any country that has signed the Refugees’ Convention. </p>
<p>In broad outline it goes like this. </p>
<h2>When boat people arrive</h2>
<p>When boat people arrive at Christmas Island, they have typically spent eight or ten days on a rickety boat. They have typically come from landlocked countries and have typically never spent time on the ocean. </p>
<p>Typically, they have had not enough to eat and not enough to drink. Typically, they have had no opportunity to wash or to change their clothes. Typically, they arrive distressed, frightened and wearing clothes caked in their own excrement. </p>
<p>They are not allowed to shower or to change their clothes before they are interviewed by a member of the Immigration Department. It is difficult to think of any decent justification for subjecting them to that humiliation. </p>
<p>When they arrive, any medical appliances they have will be confiscated and not returned: spectacles, hearing aids, false teeth, prosthetic limbs, are all confiscated. If they have any medications with them, those medications are confiscated and not returned. </p>
<p>According to doctors on Christmas Island, one person has a full-time job of sitting in front of a bin popping pills out of blister packs for later destruction. </p>
<p>If they have any medical documentation with them, it is confiscated and not returned. The result of all of this is that people with chronic health problems find themselves denied any effective treatment. </p>
<p>The results can be very distressing. For example, a doctor who worked on Christmas Island told me of a woman who had been detained there for some weeks and who was generally regarded as psychotic. Her behaviour was highly erratic for reasons that no-one understood. The consultation with this woman was very difficult because, although the doctor and the patient were sitting across a table from each other, the interpreter joined them by telephone from Sydney. </p>
<p>Eventually, the doctor worked out that the problem was that the woman was incontinent of urine. She could not leave her cabin without urine running down her leg. It was driving her mad. When the doctor worked out that this was the cause of the problem, she asked the Department to provide incontinence pads. The Department’s initial response was “we don’t do those”. The doctor insisted. </p>
<p>The Department relented and provided four incontinence pads per day: not enough, so that the woman needs to queue for more but the incontinence pads made a profound difference to her mood and behaviour. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96356/original/image-20150928-17699-x3j6nj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When boat people arrive at Christmas Island, they have typically spent eight or ten days at sea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘Pacific Solution’ mark two</h2>
<p>Asylum seekers who arrive at Christmas Island are assessed to see if there is any medical reason why they cannot be sent offshore, to Nauru or Manus Island. </p>
<p>In either place, they are held in detention centres run by Transfield Services (an Australian company). Guards are provided by Wilson Security (another Australian company). Medical Services are provided by IHMS: International Medical and Health Services (an Australian subsidiary of a French company). </p>
<p>Nevertheless, Australia insists that what happens in offshore detention is nothing to do with Australia. That is not only absurdly false, it overlooks the small detail that we spend about A$5 billion a year on the detention system. If that number is unimaginably big, it is the equivalent of one million Geelong chopper rides a year. </p>
<h2>Manus</h2>
<p>A few days ago I got an email from a health worker on Manus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… The situation as you can imagine is very grim. Around 80% of transferees suffering serious mental health issues. PNG staff are slowly being “trained” to take over various roles with mostly undesirable results. East Lorengau is not working. One refugee is lingering in hospital for over two weeks with undiagnosed stomach problems. One refugee doctor is suffering severe mental health issues…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here is an extract from a statement by a doctor who worked on Manus whose professional experience includes the provision of healthcare services in maximum-security prisons in Australia:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… On the whole, the conditions of detention at the Manus Island OPC are extremely poor. When I first arrived at the Manus Island OPC I was considerably distressed at what I saw, and I recall thinking that this must be similar to a concentration camp. </p>
<p>The detainees at the Manus Island OPC are detained behind razor wire fences, in conditions below the standard of Australian maximum-security prison. </p>
<p>My professional opinion is that the minimum medical requirements of the detained population were not being met. I have no reason to believe that the conditions of detention have improved since I ceased employment at the Manus Island OPC. </p>
<p>The conditions of detention at the Manus Island OPC appeared to be calculated to break the spirit of those detained in the Manus Island OPC. On a number of occasions the extreme conditions of detention resulted in detainees abandoning their claims for asylum and returning to their country of origin. </p>
<p>At the Manus Island OPC, bathroom facilities are rarely cleaned. There was a lot of mould, poor ventilation, and the structural integrity of the facilities is concerning. </p>
<p>No soap is provided to detainees for personal hygiene. </p>
<p>When detainees need to use the bathroom, it is standard procedure that they first attend at the guards’ station to request toilet paper. Detainees would be required to give an indication of how many ‘squares’ they will need. The maximum allowed is six squares of toilet paper, which I considered demeaning. </p>
<p>A large number of detainees continue to be in need of urgent medical attention. </p>
<p>Formal requests for medical attention are available to the detainees. The forms are only available in English. Many of the detainees do not have a workable understanding of English and the guards will not provide assistance. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Reza Barati</h2>
<p>In February 2014 Reza Barati was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/21/manus-dead-asylum-seeker-iranian-reza-berati">killed</a> on Manus Island. Initially, Australia said that he had escaped from the detention centre and was killed outside the detention centre. Soon it <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/scott-morrison-denies-communication-breakdown-g4s-manus">became clear</a> that he was killed inside the detention centre. It took months before anyone was <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/reza-barati-two-men-arrested-over-death-of-asylum-seeker-at-png-detention-centre-20140819-3dyf3.html">charged</a> with his murder.</p>
<p>Just a couple of weeks after Barati was killed, I received a sworn statement from an eyewitness. The statement included the following:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>J … is a local who worked for the Salvation Army. … He was holding a large wooden stick. It was about a metre and a half long … it had two nails in the wood. The nails were sticking out … </p>
<p>When Reza came up the stairs, J … was at the top of the stairs waiting for him. J … said ‘fuck you motherfucker’ J … then swung back behind his shoulder with the stick and took a big swing at Reza, hitting him on top of the head. </p>
<p>J … screamed again at Reza and hit him again on the head. Reza then fell on the floor … </p>
<p>I could see a lot of blood coming out of his head, on his forehead, running down his face. His blood is still there on the ground. He was still alive at this stage. </p>
<p>About 10 or 15 guards from G4S came up the stairs. Two of them were Australians. The rest were PNG locals. I know who they are. I can identify them by their face. They started kicking Reza in his head and stomach with their boots. </p>
<p>Reza was on the ground trying to defend himself. He put his arms up to cover his head but they were still kicking. </p>
<p>There was one local … I recognised him … he picked up a big rock … he lifted the rock above his head and threw it down hard on top of Reza’s head. At this time, Reza passed away. </p>
<p>One of the locals came and hit him in his leg very hard … but Reza did not feel it. This is how I know he was dead. </p>
<p>After that, as the guards came past him, they kicked his dead body on the ground … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Australia regards itself as having no responsibility for Barati or anyone else held on Manus Island or Nauru. But we pay Transfield Services to run the detention centres there. We pay Wilson Security, the Australian company which employs the guards. When the government disclaims responsibility for what happens in offshore detention centres, it is deliberately misleading you. </p>
<p>Some will be aware that I have been running a campaign to encourage Australians to write letters to people held on Nauru and Manus. Just before Christmas last year, 2000 letters I had sent to Nauru were returned to me, unopened and marked “Return to Sender”.</p>
<p>So far, the Department of Immigration has not responded to the four emails I have sent them asking for an explanation why those letters had not been delivered to the people to whom they were addressed. They have told members of the press that the named recipients of the letters did not wish to receive letters. </p>
<p>Apart from being implausible, it stands awkwardly with the fact that, during the second half of last year, the Department assured me that the letters were being received and distributed. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96364/original/image-20150928-17699-1avo485.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati was killed on Manus Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Dan Peled</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>International criticism</h2>
<p>Australia’s system of mandatory detention has been trenchantly criticized by Amnesty International and UNHCR. In late 2013, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) delivered a <a href="http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/images/2013-11-26%20Report%20of%20UNHCR%20Visit%20to%20Manus%20Island%20PNG%2023-25%20October%202013.pdf">report</a> on conditions in the Regional Processing Centre (RPC) on Manus Island, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>UNHCR was deeply troubled to observe that the current policies, operational approaches and harsh physical conditions at the RPC do not comply with international standards.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It also <a href="http://unhcr.org.au/unhcr/images/Amended%20footnote%202012-12-14%20nauru%20monitoring%20report%20final_2.pdf">reported</a> on conditions in Nauru and said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Assessed as a whole, UNHCR is of the view that the transfer of asylum-seekers to what are currently harsh and unsatisfactory temporary facilities, within a closed detention setting, and in the absence of a fully functional legal framework and adequately capacitated system to assess refugee claims, do not currently meet the required protection standards.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Just as a person’s character is judged by their conduct, so a country’s character is judged by its conduct. Australia is now judged overseas by its behaviour as cruel and selfish. We treat frightened, innocent people as criminals. It is a profound injustice. </p>
<p>It is a hard thing to be forced by circumstances to leave the country of your birth in search for a place that is safe. The play of chance is worse again for those who must seek protection in a country whose language and culture is radically different from your own. </p>
<p>How much worse must it be to find that your bid for freedom ends up with punishment as harsh as anything you might have experienced at home. I have received messages from many refugees from many countries over the course of many years which say, in substance: “In my home country they kill you quickly; in Australia they kill you slowly”. </p>
<h2>Our politicians lie to us</h2>
<p>One of the most distressing things about the present situation is that it is based on a series of lies. When politicians called boat people “illegals” and “queue jumpers” they are not telling the truth. When politicians say that they are concerned about people drowning in their attempt to reach safety, they are not telling the truth. </p>
<p>The Abbott government reintroduced <a href="https://theconversation.com/back-to-the-future-on-temporary-protection-visas-17316">temporary protection visas</a> (TPVs). Temporary protection visas offer only three years’ protection, and they include a condition which denies they prospect of family reunion. </p>
<p>That has one obvious practical consequence: families who wish to rejoin the husband or father who is living in Australia on a TPV are not allowed to come to Australia by any orthodox means, so the only way in which the family can be reunited is by the women and children using the services of a people smuggler. TPVs are a positive incentive for people to use people smugglers.</p>
<p>Quite apart from that, there is something indecent about the idea that in order to prevent people from drowning in their attempt to reach safety you punish the ones who don’t drown. That is precisely what this country is doing right now.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/96365/original/image-20150928-17725-6pahi8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The former Abbott government made an election pledge to ‘stop the boats’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Ava Benny-Morrison</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
<p>Like most of you, I am aware that Donald Horne was speaking ironically when he wrote of Australia as “the lucky country”. But in most important ways, compared with the boat people who try to reach safety in Australia, we are indeed lucky. </p>
<p>Over the past 15 years, 94% of boat people have been assessed, by us, as refugees genuinely fleeing the fear of persecution. In Australia, most members of the community never have to fear persecution; never have to fear for the late night knock on the door; never have to fear for their human rights. </p>
<p>But it is all because of the play of chance. Imagine for a moment that you are a Hazara from Afghanistan. You have fled your country and you have come down the northwest corridor through Malaysia and Indonesia. You can travel through both of those countries because they give you a one-month visa on arrival. </p>
<p>While you are in Indonesia you can go to the UNHCR office in Jakarta and apply for refugee status. If you are a Hazara from Afghanistan, you will almost certainly be assessed as a refugee. But when your one-month visa expires, you have to hide because if you are found by the police, they will jail you. </p>
<p>You cannot work because if you work you will be found and then you will be jailed. You cannot send your children to school because if you do you will be found and then you will be jailed. If the UNHCR has assessed you as a refugee, you can wait patiently in the shadows until some country offers to resettle you. That may take 20 or 30 years. </p>
<p>Now, for just one minute, imagine that chance has put you in that position: you are that person. Will you wait in the shadows for 20 or 30 years or will you take your courage in both hands and get on a boat? I have never met an Australian who would not get on the boat. It’s a very strange thing that we criticise, revile and punish those who do precisely what we would do if by chance we had not the luck to belong to this country. </p>
<p>Whether this thinking will bear fruit may soon be tested. In the last weeks of its existence, the Abbott government shifted its position quickly in response to public opinion. It had initially resisted the idea of receiving Syrian refugees. </p>
<p>Public opinion could see however that bombing Syrians and turning our backs on them was not a good look. Germany conspicuously agreed to take 800,000 Syrian refugees, with very few questions asked. That made our claim to be “the most generous country in the world” look a bit hollow. Given that Germany’s population is about four times ours, we would have had to receive 200,000 refugees rather than the present quota of 13,750. </p>
<p>Abbott volunteered that we would take 12,000 Syrians. Whether the Turnbull government engages in cherry-picking remains to be seen. There is a real risk that the Howard government sentiment will survive: “If they come in the front door, they are (more or less) welcome; if they come in the back door, we will jail them”. </p>
<p>It’s too early to tell whether community attitudes have actually changed. If they have, government attitudes are likely to change. </p>
<p>The second matter was equally surprising and even more encouraging. Melbourne responded swiftly and decisively against the idea of Border Force officers cruising the streets and “speaking to anyone who crosses our path”. The original idea, apparently, was to have squads of public transport officers, police, and Border Force officers who would intercept people at places like Flinders Street Station and check their Myki card, their identity and their visa status.</p>
<p>Melbourne heard of the proposal on the morning of Friday, August 28. Melbournians turned out in force to protest. By mid-afternoon, the exercise had been cancelled, in a flurry of buck-passing. </p>
<p>In my view, Melbourne’s reaction – so swift and decisive – showed that we know when and where to draw the line. Perhaps I am an optimist, but I think it showed what sort of country we are. I think that, at heart, we are still the country that David Hamer and Dick Hamer served with such distinction. Perhaps someone should tell our politicians.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/48162/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Burnside is a patron of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre. He does not accept any fees when acting for asylum seekers, and any offers of payment for other services in this area are politely declined.</span></em></p>By our response to boat people since August 2001, we may have redefined our national character.Julian Burnside, Adjunct Professor, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/436162015-07-13T20:18:35Z2015-07-13T20:18:35ZRemembering the ‘old’ Department of Immigration’s nation-building traditions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87441/original/image-20150706-17498-1jnej7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The increasing obsession with 'border security' has conspired to erode the nation-building objectives of Australian immigration policy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In a <a href="http://www.border.gov.au/about/news-media/speeches-presentations/immigration-and-nation-building-in-australia">recent lecture</a>, Immigration and Border Protection secretary Michael Pezzullo outlined several changes to the department’s functions and organisation. These culminated in its <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-01/border-force-commissioner-operational-matters-roman-quaedvlieg/6586274">merger</a> with Customs and Border Protection Services on July 1. Pezzullo pulled no punches in declaring how significant a shift this is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Department of Immigration of our collective memory and imagination will be no more, after 70 long years of service.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Given the enormous contribution that the old department made to the successful selection and settlement of immigrants during the past 70 years – and its key role in shaping modern Australian society – the public is entitled to ask what sort of changes are envisioned and whether they are a good thing.</p>
<p>Based on decades of immigration research, the changes are profoundly troubling. They represent what is perhaps the final nail in the coffin for the department’s nation-building traditions. They herald a new era in immigration policy and administration focused primarily on border protection, control and compliance. There are significant risks for new settlers and the body politic.</p>
<h2>The department’s origins</h2>
<p>The Chifley Labor government created the original department in 1945 on the basis that its ambitious postwar immigration program would require a sophisticated administrative structure to support it.</p>
<p>While immigration planning was partly motivated by wartime fears about Australia’s defence capacities, more positive values and ideas were apparent. These were centred on optimistic images of postwar reconstruction and population growth. </p>
<p>Fired by Keynesian, nation-building and liberal-internationalist ideals, a new generation of bureaucrats, politicians, academics and community leaders put their faith in the capacity of specialist expertise, co-operative administration and popular and civic engagement to resolve the big challenges. Among these were the Australian population’s decline and what to do about the millions of refugees and <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-post-war-migration-was-a-success-lets-admit-it-28390">potential immigrants</a> scattered across Europe.</p>
<p>Planning was conducted during a two-year period between 1943 and 1945. It was led by a group of bureaucrats representing those portfolios with a direct stake in the issue: postwar reconstruction, external affairs, treasury, interior and information. Some of those officials are well known – <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/coombs-herbert-cole-nugget-246">H.C. “Nugget” Coombs</a> and W.D. Forsyth. Forsyth <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2049822?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">warned</a> that an Australian population increase would require much more immigration, most of it likely to come from Southern Europe. </p>
<p>Other contributors are less celebrated, but no less important. L.F. Giblin, chair of the powerful wartime Finance and Economic Committee, devised the 2% population increase target – 1% of which would come from natural growth and 1% from migration. This was the basis for Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell’s “scientifically planned” <a href="http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au/doc/zubrzycki_1.pdf">immigration program</a> announced in 1945. </p>
<p>The visionary work of these men reveals a fascinating story of bureaucratic activism – one which is still barely acknowledged in our national history.</p>
<h2>The department’s early successes and problems</h2>
<p>The new department’s success was measurable in four ways: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>the rapid growth of postwar immigration after 1945 despite considerable practical challenges;</p></li>
<li><p>the rapid breakdown of the racial-cultural hierarchy that had traditionally shaped immigration planning; </p></li>
<li><p>the relatively successful integration of millions of new settlers within three decades; and </p></li>
<li><p>the growth of the department itself. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>The details regarding the first three points are well known. The latter is hardly recognised at all. From very humble beginnings in 1945 with only 24 staff members, the department grew to have hundreds of staff members by 1949. They were positioned in offices all around Australia and overseas, including in Britain, Germany, Italy and the US. </p>
<p>The department quickly developed an unprecedented range of responsibilities. These included migrant selection, entry, travel, settlement, integration and citizenship, publicity and passport control.</p>
<p>There were problems. The department’s nation-building objectives were always in tension with control and compliance functions. Most of these centred upon the racial restrictions and political biases embedded in the <a href="http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/immigration-restriction-act/">Immigration Restriction Act</a>. </p>
<p>Over the next few decades, officers would find themselves repeatedly mired in controversies involving their harsh treatment of individuals deemed to be at odds with Australian immigration policy. Public accusations of racism, secrecy, harshness, brutality and unaccountability were frequent. By the early 1970s, the list of criticisms directed at the department included bureaucratic inertia and empire-building at the expense of the national interest.</p>
<h2>How we’ve arrived at today’s department</h2>
<p>History is generally on the side of the old department. For all its faults and weaknesses, its role was fundamental to the postwar immigration program’s success. </p>
<p>Its wide-ranging activities reflected a complete approach to immigration. New settlers – including refugees – were viewed as potential citizens and contributors to the common wealth, not just workers, “leaners” or consumers of public goods. Linked to this was a strong commitment – at least in the early days – to keeping the Australian people on side with immigration. </p>
<p>The department’s propaganda arm was often clunky, patronising and misleading. But it did presume at least that it owed the public a certain level of accountability. </p>
<p>Its considerable faults notwithstanding, officials did eventually heed the tide of history, especially in regard to non-discrimination, the failures of assimilation and the need to deal positively with the reality of cultural diversity. The much-vaunted “success” of Australia’s postwar immigration was not an accident of history or a reflection of the innate tolerance of its citizens. It was due in large part to the planning that surrounded it, especially in regard to migrant entry and settlement.</p>
<p>This historical context is vital to understanding the changes that have undermined the department’s traditional functions in recent decades. Neoliberalism, political interests and the increasing obsession with <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/tony-abbott-vows-swift-more-forthright-action-on-border-security-from-day-one-20130916-2tuvm.html">border security</a> have all conspired to erode the nation-building objectives of Australian immigration policy since the early 1990s. </p>
<p>The department’s power and complexity have grown dramatically. However, its efficiency and reputation have not. Critics continue to slam its hardline approach to unauthorised maritime arrivals, especially its mandatory detention and deportation powers. Successive independent inquiries have criticised its culture and operations, citing strong evidence of “risk aversion” and biases towards control and compliance. </p>
<p>Names like <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/cornelia-rau-the-verdict/2005/07/17/1121538868891.html">Cornelia Rau</a>, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-lies-that-kept-vivian-alvarez-hidden-for-years/2005/08/19/1124435144969.html">Vivian Solon</a>, <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.au/hrs/comments/dr_mohamed_haneef/">Mohamed Haneef</a>, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-26/scott-morrison-releases-review-into-manus-island-riot/5478170">Reza Berati</a> and <a href="http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/bringbackasha-campaign-gathers-momentum-as-government-attempts-to-silence-doctors/story-fnq2o7dd-1227425104652">baby Asha</a> have become by-words for bureaucratic secrecy, unaccountability and cruelty.</p>
<p>This recent history alerts us to various problems with the Abbott government’s changes. The hiving off of the department’s integration and multicultural functions, the merging of Immigration with Customs and Border Protection, the introduction of the <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2015A00040">Australian Border Force Act</a>, proposed changes to <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-exactly-makes-the-call-on-conduct-that-revokes-citizenship-new-bill-doesnt-say-43781">citizenship laws</a> and increases of the immigration minister’s discretionary powers all point to the intensification of immigration securitisation at the expense of nation-building and social capital investment.</p>
<p>Working on the assumption that social cohesion, equality of opportunity and rights, and accountability still matter, Australians are obliged to ask why the government wants to overturn initiatives that have worked so well in the past.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the first in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/immigrations-changing-face">series</a> of three articles looking at how the Department of Immigration has changed as it marks 70 years since its creation.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43616/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwenda Tavan was a recipient of the Frederick Watson Fellowship from the National Archives of Australia in 2012. She was also a recipient of the National Library of Australia's Harold White Fellowship that same year. </span></em></p>For all its faults and weaknesses, the role of the old Department of Immigration was fundamental to the success of the postwar immigration program.Gwenda Tavan, Senior Lecturer, Politics and International Relations, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/444672015-07-12T20:24:34Z2015-07-12T20:24:34ZFactCheck: Could a whistleblower go public without fear of prosecution under the Border Force Act?<blockquote>
<p>RICHARD MARLES: … we absolutely support transparency and it is absolutely critical that doctors, nurses, lawyers, any contractor in a detention facility speak out when they see that there is something wrong. I mean, that’s fundamental. People should understand in relation to the Australian Border Force Act and, Greg, you might want to know this too, it makes it absolutely plain that the whistleblower protection, which applies across the public service, which is the basis upon which people speak out, applies in this situation as well.</p>
<p>TONY JONES: Does that mean a whistleblower can go public without threat of prosecution?</p>
<p>RICHARD MARLES: Well, that’s what the whistleblower legislation absolutely does.</p>
<p>GREG SHERIDAN: No, that’s not true Richard. That’s wrong. Protected information and a designated person cannot go public in the normal course of things under whistleblower legislation. – Shadow Immigration and Border Protection Minister Richard Marles, in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4250966.htm">discussion</a> with foreign affairs editor at The Australian, Greg Sheridan, and Q&A host Tony Jones, on Q&A, Monday July 6, 2015.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The new <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Series/C2015A00040">Border Force Act 2015</a>, supported by both the government and the opposition, makes it an offence for employees of the Australian Border Force to disclose “protected information”, which may include information gleaned in their work as an employee.</p>
<p>That’s drawn sharp criticism from a number of health care and humanitarian workers, who have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/detention-centre-staff-speak-out-in-defiance-of-new-asylum-secrecy-laws">said</a> that the secrecy provisions could be used to jail, for example, detention centre workers who report child abuse occurring in offshore refugee detention centres.</p>
<p>A number of health and humanitarian workers have penned an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/detention-centre-staff-speak-out-in-defiance-of-new-asylum-secrecy-laws">open letter</a> to Prime Minister Tony Abbott saying they will defy such constraints on disclosure.</p>
<p>The shadow minister for immigration and border protection, Richard Marles, argued on Q&A recently that such people would be shielded by whistleblower protection laws, known officially as the <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013A00133">Commonwealth Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013</a>.</p>
<p>Is he right?</p>
<h2>The letter of the law</h2>
<p>The secrecy provisions of the <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Series/C2015A00040">Border Force Act 2015</a> in Section 42 set out the offence provisions for the disclosure of protected information. </p>
<p>Subparagraph 42 (2) ( c ) states that these offence provisions do not apply if the disclosure is authorised under a Commonwealth, state, or territory statute. Therefore, the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 does apply and a whistleblower would be protected.</p>
<p>The definition of disclosures covered by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 is broad enough to include the sorts of issues raised in the health care and humanitarian workers’ <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/01/detention-centre-staff-speak-out-in-defiance-of-new-asylum-secrecy-laws">open letter</a>, including abuse of refugees.</p>
<p>However, there are qualifications. First, the Border Force Act applies only to officers, employees and contractors employed under the Border Force Act 2015.</p>
<p>For persons making a disclosure to be protected under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, they first have to report their concerns internally. Disclosure to outside parties must only be made after they “believe on reasonable grounds” that the investigation was inadequate (or delayed) or the response was inadequate.</p>
<p>Also, public disclosures under the Act must not be contrary to the public interest nor make public sensitive information about law enforcement.</p>
<p>Another potential impediment to a disclosure being protected is the exemption provided by paragraphs 26 (2A) and 31 (b) of the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. These provisions exempt a disclosure being protected if the matter relates to a matter where a Minister has taken action or proposes to take action. A person cannot disclose information only on the basis that the person disagrees with the action that has been, is being, or is proposed to be taken by a Minister. This can occur where the Minister exercises authority in individual cases, for <a href="http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/bringbackasha-campaign-gathers-momentum-as-government-attempts-to-silence-doctors/story-fnq2o7dd-1227425104652">example</a>, dealing with a recommendation <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2015/s4248467.htm">to relocate a person for medical treatment</a>. In these circumstances, this exemption to protection could apply. Ministerial intervention in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-25/maria-sevilla-and-tyrone-sevillas-deportation-stopped/6493866">immigration</a> and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/oct/22/scott-morrison-personally-intervenes-block-claims-permanent-asylum">asylum seeker</a> cases has occurred in the past. </p>
<h2>Qualifications matter</h2>
<p>It is possible the Commonwealth could use these qualifications to dispute the validity of the protections provided under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. Previous official <a href="https://theconversation.com/procedural-fairness-that-doesnt-apply-to-us-says-immigration-department-39167">responses</a> to allegations of abuse happening at offshore detention centres suggest the government might be willing to take a hard line.</p>
<p>However, the the new Border Force Commissioner, Roman Quaedvlieg, has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/medical-staff-unlikely-to-be-prosecuted-under-new-border-protection-laws-says-border-force-commissioner-20150701-gi269g.html">reportedly</a> said that he “sincerely doubts” that any action would be taken against medical professionals who report abuse.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding the existence of legal rights, research has shown that public sector whistleblowers can face retaliation. </p>
<p>A 2008 research <a href="http://press.anu.edu.au/titles/australia-and-new-zealand-school-of-government-anzsog-2/whistleblowing_citation/">project</a> into public sector whistleblowing led by A.J. Brown of Griffith University found that 22% of public sector employees who make a public interest disclosure suffer some form of retaliation. </p>
<p>This retaliation can range from minor harassment through to dismissal from employment. Also, that research project indicated that the biggest risks likely to be suffered by persons making disclosures occur when the disclosure is made public. It should be noted that this finding was based on data collected before the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 was enacted, but a risk of retaliation remains for whistleblowers.</p>
<h2>What a Border Force worker needs to know</h2>
<p>If the person has concerns that need to be raised, it is advisable that these be done formally under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. The disclosure should be made internally at first. The person should also keep written records of the circumstances surrounding the disclosure and subsequent developments.</p>
<p>Before going to the next step of making the disclosure public, the person should seek advice from a trusted senior officer within the organisation, as well as obtaining independent legal advice.</p>
<p>The research has shown that the persons who negotiate a public interest disclosure process most successfully are those who have good professional, social and family networks that are prepared to support them in this difficult situation.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Marles was correct in his statement that medical professionals employed under the Border Force Act 2015 are able to make public disclosures about their concerns. They would be protected by whistleblower laws but <em>only if</em> they disclosed in a very specific way. The disclosure process has qualifications and persons making disclosures need to be careful that they act in a way that enables them to take advantage of the protections provided by the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. </p>
<p>Legal protections cannot guarantee absolutely that whistleblowers will be spared from retaliation. The understandable concerns of medical professionals would be eased if the government made a clear statement that the rights to act upon concerns about their clients were to be respected.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a sound legal analysis of the extent to which the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 shields whistleblowers from retaliation.</p>
<p>As far as health professionals are concerned, <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2015A00040/Html/Text#_Toc419973065">Section 48 of the Border Force Act</a> — which permits disclosure if an entrusted person “reasonably believes that the disclosure is necessary to prevent or lessen a serious threat to the life or health of an individual” — arguably provides greater protection than the whistleblower protections under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. </p>
<p>However, as I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/border-force-act-entrenches-secrecy-around-australias-asylum-seeker-regime-44136">previously argued</a>, other provisions in the Border Force Act that regulate employee conduct may deter employees from relying on this exception.</p>
<p>The Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 also includes <a href="https://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013A00133/Html/Text#_Toc361755356">“emergency disclosure”</a> provisions that allow public disclosure on “reasonable grounds that the information concerns a substantial and imminent danger to the health or safety of one or more persons or to the environment”. But, as the author has identified, such disclosures must first be made internally (unless there are exceptional circumstances) and cannot include sensitive law enforcement information.</p>
<p>The internal hurdles that must be overcome may delay or deter important disclosures in the public interest. I agree that even where disclosures are made public, the extent to which Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 provides protection will largely depend on how the qualifications of “sensitive law enforcement information” and information that is “contrary to the public interest” are interpreted.</p>
<p>The author is right in arguing that the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 cannot “guarantee absolutely” that whistleblowers will be spared from retaliation. <strong>– Khanh Hoang</strong></p>
<p><em>UPDATE: This article was updated at 2pm on July 13 to add a paragraph on how the Public Interest Disclosure Act relates to cases of Ministerial intervention.</em></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Roberts was a Chief Investigator on the Whistling While They Work research project 2005-2009 which received funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tomas Fitzgerald receives funding from the WA Bar Association. He is a member of the WA Labor Party and the NTEU.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Khanh Hoang 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>Despite doctors voicing fears they could be jailed for disclosing abuse of refugees, Richard Marles says whistleblower protection laws would still apply in relation to the Border Force Act. Is he right?Peter Roberts, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/440682015-07-03T03:03:49Z2015-07-03T03:03:49ZFactCheck: is this the greatest period of humanitarian need since WWII?<blockquote>
<p>“We acknowledge that right now the world is going through its greatest period of humanitarian need seen since the second world war. There are more people seeking refuge, more people displaced than at any other point in time … ” <strong>– Shadow Immigration and Border Protection Minister Richard Marles, <a href="http://www.richardmarles.com.au/sites/default/files/THE%20HON%20RICHARD%20MARLES%20MP_0.pdf">interview</a> with Fran Kelly on RN Breakfast, June 29, 2015.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the lead-up to the ALP National Conference this month, <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/06/30/labors-debate-boat-turnbacks-heats">reports</a> have emerged suggesting the opposition may throw its support behind the policy of turning back asylum seeker boats.</p>
<p>When questioned on the topic, Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles mentioned that the world is now going through its greatest period of humanitarian need since the second world war. </p>
<p>Is that correct?</p>
<h2>Rapid acceleration</h2>
<p>It is likely Marles’ comment was a reference to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) annual Global Trends Report, <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/556725e69.html">released</a> in June. The agency estimated that at the end of 2014 there was an estimated <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html">59.5 million</a> people forcibly displaced worldwide. There has been a rapid acceleration of displacement, increasing 40% over just three years from 42.5 million in 2011. </p>
<p>From the end of 2013 to the end of 2014, there was an <a href="http://tracks.unhcr.org/2015/06/ending-the-second-exile/">increase</a> of 8.3 million displaced people from the year. That 12-month period also saw the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/558193896.html">highest annual increase</a> in a single year.</p>
<p>The data in the report is based on figures provided by governments, non-government organisations and the UNHCR. The <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/556725e69.html">figures</a> include refugees (19.5 million), asylum seekers (1.8 million), and certain groups of internally displaced persons (38.2 million), collectively referred to as “persons of concern”.</p>
<p>The UNHCR has stated that is the highest level of displacement in the post-WWII era. Situations of conflict, persecution, generalised violence, and human rights violations have formed a “nation of the displaced” roughly equivalent of the population of the UK. UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres has <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/55813f0e6.html">said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>More than half of Syria’s population is displaced. It is one of the biggest refugee crises in history with around four million people leaving the country. At least <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/55813f0e6.html">7.6 million Syrians</a> are also estimated to be displaced within their country at the end of 2014. <a href="http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html">Children</a> constituted 51% of the refugee population in 2014, the highest figure in more than a decade.</p>
<p>The refugee crisis in Syria was certainly not the only one. Little-publicised conflicts in South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria and Burundi, have added hundreds of thousands to the long-standing refugee populations from Somalia, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.</p>
<p>The number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Asia <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/55813f0e6.html">grew</a> by 31% in 2014 to nine million people. Continuing displacement was also seen in and from Myanmar in 2014, including of Rohingya from Rakhine state and in the Kachin and Northern Shan regions.</p>
<p>Compounding the ongoing displacement of people, the number of refugee returns is at its <a href="http://unhcr.org/556725e69.pdf">lowest</a> point since 1983. During 2014, only <a href="http://unhcr.org/556725e69.pdf">126,800</a> refugees returned to their country of origin. Ongoing conflict and general political insecurity have contributed to the prevailing trends.</p>
<p>In an effort to escape desperate situations, refugees and migrants risk their lives – the starkest examples are those who have embarked on dangerous boat journeys in the Mediterranean from North Africa to Europe and in South East Asia. At the end of 2014, the UNHCR estimated that at least <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/5481bf796.html">348,000</a> people had attempted to reach safety by boat throughout the year.</p>
<h2>Response from the international community</h2>
<p>In response to this crisis, many destination countries (including Australia) were criticised by the UNHCR for resorting to tougher deterrence measures in an attempt to stem the rise in asylum and refugee flows. Amnesty International <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.au/resources/activist/POL4017962015ENGLISH.PDF">described</a> the international community’s response to the Syrian refugee emergency as “dismal”, saying that only 23% of the UN humanitarian appeal for that crisis funded as of June 3, 2015.</p>
<p>The UNHCR’s Guterres did not mince words, <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/558016eb6.html">saying</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[E]ven as this tragedy unfolds, some of the countries most able to help are shutting their gates to people seeking asylum. Borders are closing, pushbacks are increasing, and hostility is rising. Avenues for legitimate escape are fading away. And humanitarian organisations like mine run on shoestring budgets, unable to meet the spiralling needs of such a massive population of victims. We have reached a moment of truth. World stability is falling apart leaving a wake of displacement on an unprecedented scale.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the aftermath of WWII, the international community established the United Nations and the Refugee Convention to provide a framework for protection of those who were displaced due to conflict and who could not longer rely upon their own country for safety.</p>
<p>The Refugee Convention also established the principle of responsibility and burden-sharing – the idea that the international community must work together to address refugee crises so that no one country, or a small number of countries, has to cope by themselves. </p>
<p>There is a clearly disproportionate burden on a small number of countries. Around 86% of the world’s refugees are in developing countries. Turkey, Lebanon and Pakistan each host <a href="http://www.unhcr.org.uk/about-us/key-facts-and-figures.html">more than one million refugees</a>.</p>
<p>Amnesty International is one of many human rights organisations who have <a href="http://www.amnesty.org.au/resources/activist/POL4017962015ENGLISH.PDF">said</a> that the principle of international burden sharing is being ignored “with devastating consequences: the international refugee protection system is broken”. The loss of life and human misery is far higher than many armed conflicts.</p>
<p>The global refugee crisis will not be solved unless the international community recognises that it is a global problem and deals with it as such.</p>
<h2>Verdict</h2>
<p>Marles’ statement is consistent with the recent report on global displacement by the UNHCR. Those displaced by conflict and persecution are at the highest levels the UNHCR has recorded, and sadly they are continuing to grow.</p>
<hr>
<h2>Review</h2>
<p>This is a good analysis, as the recently released UNHCR report rightly draws our attention to the increasing number of refugees and displaced people around the world.</p>
<p>As the author notes, it is the “frontline” countries like Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan that are providing temporary refuge for the massive flow of refugees from Syria. Pakistan continues to be the first place for Afghans fleeing their prolonged conflict, but even Pakistan is now a source country for refugees.</p>
<p>However, other conflicts in Africa receive less attention particularly in the English language media, apart from commentary on boat people in the Mediterranean. It rightly is a global issue calling for global attention. The focus on “turn backs”, which was the main topic of the interview, does not address the need for a global approach to increased movement of people. <strong>– Kerry Murphy</strong></p>
<hr>
<p><div class="callout"> Have you ever seen a “fact” that doesn’t look quite right? The Conversation’s FactCheck asks academic experts to test claims and see how true they are. We then ask a second academic to review an anonymous copy of the article. You can request a check at checkit@theconversation.edu.au. Please include the statement you would like us to check, the date it was made, and a link if possible.</div></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44068/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 received grant funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Murphy is on the Board of the Immigration Advice and Rights Centre and the Jesuit Refugee Service. I am a partner in a specialist Immigration Law Firm.
</span></em></p>Shadow Immigration Minister Richard Marles has said that the world is now going through its greatest period of humanitarian need since WWII. Is that right?Mary Anne Kenny, Associate Professor, School of Law, Murdoch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/363512015-02-03T01:28:37Z2015-02-03T01:28:37ZShaping 2015: The boats have stopped, now the real work begins in immigration<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70107/original/image-20150127-24541-1freidg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has so far continued in the 'bad cop', border protector image of his predecessor, Scott Morrison.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>2014 was the year of <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-29/pm-hails-100-days-without-an-asylum-seeker-boat-arrival/5354100">triumphant press conferences</a> at which the Abbott government affirmed its determination to <a href="https://www.liberal.org.au/its-time-take-stand-and-stop-boats">“stop the boats”</a> and outlined its success at doing so. However, 2015 is likely to be much more difficult for the government to negotiate in the area of asylum seeker policy.</p>
<p>In his public comments since being appointed as minister for immigration and border protection, Peter Dutton has continued in the “bad cop”, border protector image of his predecessor, Scott Morrison. He <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/immigration-minister-peter-dutton-targets-bikie-gang-members-as-top-of-my-list-for-deporting-20141223-12cp0c.html">promised</a> to target non-citizen permanent residents who have a criminal record and are vulnerable to deportation. </p>
<p>Dutton also <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2015/s4165495.htm">backed</a> the use of force by detention authorities to end <a href="https://theconversation.com/manus-island-hunger-strikes-are-a-call-to-australias-conscience-36419">protests on Manus Island</a> while stressing repeatedly that no asylum seeker arriving by boat would be resettled in Australia. </p>
<h2>An end to offshore detention?</h2>
<p>Stopping the boats was always the easy part of the government’s policy. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-boats-may-have-stopped-but-at-what-cost-to-australia-30455">came with</a> tangible results, and hidden and delayed costs. In 2015, those costs are quickly materialising. </p>
<p>In most cases, stopping the boats meant redirecting boat arrivals to Nauru and Manus Island. The Gillard government <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/labor-caucus-backs-expert-panel-on-asylum-policy/story-fn9hm1gu-1226449423972">restarted</a> offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island in August and November 2012. The detention centres were quickly filled. </p>
<p>The majority of detainees are genuine refugees and require resettlement. The problem for the government is that, having ruled out resettlement in Australia, there are now very few sustainable options for resettling these refugees. 2015 will see continued efforts to pressure nations in Australia’s region to take in refugees from Nauru and Manus Island. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-does-the-cambodia-refugee-deal-comply-with-the-convention-29639">Cambodia deal</a> seems <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/dutton-to-progress-cambodia-talks/story-fn3dxiwe-1227190449522">close to completion</a> and, if it holds up, refugees may be transferred there.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70360/original/image-20150128-22295-6sxej.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>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some asylum seekers on Manus Island have recently protested at the length of their detention.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Refugee Action Collective</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, this is unlikely to be an easy story for the government to sell. Although Cambodia became a signatory to the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49da0e466.html">UN Refugee Convention</a> in 1992, it was a source country for asylum seekers to Australia in the 1990s. More recently, it was engulfed in a <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/country-chapters/cambodia">human rights crisis</a> after elections in 2013, and its treatment of Montagnard refugees from Vietnam has <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/cambodias-treatment-of-montagnard-refugees-focuses-critics-on-australias-asylum-seeker-deal-20141203-11z808.html">come under criticism</a>. </p>
<p>In November 2014, ten refugees on Manus Island <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/png-offers-10-asylum-seekers-refugee-status-20141112-11l6nk.html">were granted</a> temporary visas to live and work in Papua New Guinea. How well these refugees adapt to life in PNG will determine whether this will be a more extensive part of the resettlement program. Given the state of the PNG economy, and the stark cultural differences between refugees on Manus Island and PNG locals, this does not seem likely.</p>
<p>As the time people spend in appalling conditions in detention centres <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/asylum-seekers-time-in-detention-soars-20140502-zr3eg.html">continues to grow</a>, Dutton has <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/01/20/dutton-says-force-used-to-quell-manus-protest.html">conceded</a> that “flash points” like those recently experienced on Manus Island are likely to continue to occur. </p>
<p>The government will find it increasingly difficult to defend its offshore detention regime now that the boats have stopped. Demands to stop the suffering of the unlucky asylum seekers on Nauru and Manus Island will grow louder and international pressure will mount.</p>
<h2>Legislative changes punish refugees</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r5346">Amendments</a> to the <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma1958118/">Migration Act</a>, passed on the last parliamentary sitting day of 2014, have <a href="https://theconversation.com/new-law-gives-morrison-unprecedented-control-over-asylum-seekers-35106">profoundly altered</a> the claims process for asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat since 2012.</p>
<p>The amendments removed the Refugee Convention provisions from the Migration Act and incorporated new and more onerous requirements for satisfying the definition of a refugee. If the Department of Immigration rejects a claim under the new regime, asylum seekers who arrived by boat between August 13, 2012, and December 1, 2014, no longer seek review in the Refugee Review Tribunal, but in a new review body, the Immigration Assessment Authority. </p>
<p>Other than in exceptional circumstances, the authority does not hold hearings and is required to review decisions on the papers provided to it from original decisions. Decisions of the authority are likely to be the subject of challenges in the courts on a range of grounds, including the correct interpretation of Australia’s protection obligations, the authority’s jurisdiction and the procedural fairness of the processing regime. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/70361/original/image-20150128-22317-oaov7y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Palmer United Party will be key in negotiating for any immigration legislation to be passed by the Senate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Lukas Coch</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of these claims may succeed, but most will fail. When the dust settles, many thousands of asylum seekers who have been living in the community or in immigration detention in Australia will likely be deported to their country of origin. If this occurs, we are likely to hear <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-folly-returns-afghan-hazaras-to-torture-and-death-32939">more stories</a> of returned refugees being killed by those they attempted to flee, or escaping again in search of protection. </p>
<p>If claimants are successful under the new processing regime, they are eligible for temporary – not permanent – protection visas. The Palmer United Party negotiated for a new temporary protection visa, the five-year <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/scott-morrison-strikes-deal-with-clive-palmer-to-reintroduce-temporary-protection-visas-20140924-10lpui.html">Safe Haven Enterprise visa</a>, which provides a pathway to a further substantive visa for those who work in designated regional areas for three-and-a-half years during the life of the visa.</p>
<p>However, how this visa will work remains unclear. Where will refugees be able to work? What support will they get to settle in regional areas? Will they require sponsors to work, or will they be free to enter the regional job market unrestricted, alongside working holidaymakers and international students?</p>
<p>Watch in 2015 for stories of the success or otherwise of refugees as workers in regional Australia, and for complaints of their exploitation. </p>
<p>The government shows every indication of maintaining its tough line on asylum seekers in 2015. But now that the boat crisis is over, this may sound less convincing in the face of the continuing trauma of asylum seekers in Australia’s midst.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Catch up on the rest of The Conversation’s Shaping 2015 series <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/shaping-2015">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article originally stated that the Refugee Review Tribunal had been abolished. This is incorrect and the article has been amended.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36351/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Reilly is a member of the board of the Refugee Advocacy Service of South Australia, a voluntary service providing free legal and migration advice to asylum seekers.</span></em></p>2014 was the year of triumphant press conferences at which the Abbott government affirmed its determination to “stop the boats” and outlined its success at doing so. However, 2015 is likely to be much…Alex Reilly, Deputy Dean and 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/364272015-01-22T02:03:28Z2015-01-22T02:03:28ZTracing the far-reaching changes in immigration and border protection<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/69489/original/image-20150120-24429-1u91fs4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Michael Pezzullo is spearheading far-reaching changes in doctrine and organisation of Australian immigration and border security.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Stefan Postles</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Australian government is in the throes of a major recasting of traditional immigration and border security doctrines and institutions. The changes are being led by the incoming secretary of the newly formed mega-department of Immigration and Border Protection, Michael Pezzullo. Pezzullo has years of experience managing border protection operations in the former Department of Customs and Border Protection, where he oversaw Border Protection Command and, more recently, <a href="http://www.customs.gov.au/site/operation-sovereign-borders.asp">Operation Sovereign Borders</a>. </p>
<p>There have been very few major public signposts. Most of these changes are happening quietly. Then-immigration minister Scott Morrison’s <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-09/immigration-minister-scott-morrison-announces-new-border-agency/5441968">announcement</a> in May 2014 of a new “Australian Border Force” – a super-agency combining all the enforcement functions of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration departments, reporting directly to him as minister – was met with mirth. </p>
<p>Morrison’s announcement also attracted serious criticisms that the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-13/berg-beware-the-border-force-fetish/5448680">outcome</a> might become something like the overly powerful US Department of Homeland Security. Critics were concerned about the <a href="http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=40395#.VLyN641d5LM">dangers</a> to Australian values of an unrestrained “border protection above all else” ideology and operational culture. </p>
<p>In October, Prime Minister Tony Abbott <a href="http://www.themandarin.com.au/5251-customs-boss-shifts-department-immigration-secretary/">announced</a> Pezzullo’s appointment as secretary of the newly created Department of Immigration and Border Protection. </p>
<p>Pezzullo has an impressive 28-year national security career background, initially as a staffer to Gareth Evans and Kim Beazley, and subsequently in Defence. In Customs, he moved into border protection. He was appointed CEO of Customs in 2013, replacing Michael Carmody, whose deputy he had been for some years. Pezzullo has had extensive experience fronting parliamentary committees inquiring into asylum seeker deaths at sea. </p>
<p>Peter Dutton succeeded Morrison as immigration minister in a late-December ministerial reshuffle. Dutton’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/focus-of-immigration-department-moves-from-resettlement-to-enforcement-20141231-12g2uo.html">first announcement</a> was that Customs officers will be able to carry guns at Australian airports. He made clear – through a spokesman – his full support for the new focus of the integrated department on border protection. </p>
<p>Before this, on December 4, 2014, at an Australian Strategic Policy Institute national security dinner, Pezzullo made a <a href="http://www.immi.gov.au/about/speeches-pres/_pdf/sovereignty-age-interdependency-04122014.pdf">major policy speech</a> setting out his vision for the new department. In our post-Westphalian world of sovereign nation-states accountable only to themselves – but who seek safe rules-based systems for international exchanges – he argued border protection must be the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… third leg of the trinity of state power which underpins and ensures state sovereignty.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The two other legs would be defence and diplomacy. According to Pezzullo, in our globalised world, borders are no longer territorial or maritime fixed lines. They are “spaces” through which sovereign states control flows of people and goods into and out of their dominion. However:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… criminal non-state groups embed themselves into legitimate networks of commerce and adopt a laundered face, which they present to the global network of trade and travel.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This leads to a logical need for an integrated Immigration and Customs department, with its own uniformed and ranked armed force. The Australian Border Force will start operations on July 1, 2015. The department will be responsible for managing immigration and citizenship, customs and trade rules, all aspects of border controls including law enforcement and quarantine, and Australia’s offshore civil maritime security. Everything must be integrated: there can be no bureaucratic silos with intervening grey areas that enemies can exploit. </p>
<p>This is empire-building on a grand scale. It gets better. Pezzullo defines the border protection task as involving:</p>
<ul>
<li>post-border law-enforcement activities within Australia; </li>
<li>actions in the undefined “border space” itself; and </li>
<li>co-operative actions with other governments beyond the border space. </li>
</ul>
<p>In other words, whatever is necessary, wherever necessary. This doctrine has been at work in questionable naval operations involving <a href="https://theconversation.com/indonesia-incursion-report-provides-more-questions-than-answers-on-turn-backs-23456">Indonesia</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/handing-over-tamils-to-the-state-they-fled-breaks-international-law-28767">Sri Lanka</a>. </p>
<p>Pezzullo compares the historic importance of the present re-organisation to <a href="http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/tange-sir-arthur-harold-15789">Arthur Tange’s</a> amalgamation of the defence and armed services departments in the 1970s. He also lauds Australia’s membership of the “Border Five”, pooling Australian, NZ, Canadian, UK and US border protection experience and intelligence. The integrated department will have a new international division, managing these and other international border protection exchanges. </p>
<p>Pezzullo finally reflects on Australia’s successful multicultural immigration experience and future. He hints that Australia is now essentially full. The “original mission of 1945 to build the population base” has been accomplished. Now the focus is on short-term in-and-out flows as the national interest demands. </p>
<p>But do Australians need to worry about any of this? Can we leave all the thinking to this capable and ambitious change-master? </p>
<p>There are large gaps. Pezzullo’s doctrine is harsh towards asylum seekers who arrive independently at Australia’s maritime borders. He sees unauthorised on-water people movements as criminal threats to Australia’s security. He has no words on Australia’s international good citizen role, its responsibility to protect abroad and not contribute to wars that trigger new refugee flows, or our responsibilities to observe international conventions on the law of the sea and maritime search and rescue.</p>
<p>Pezzullo’s concept of borders as flexible spaces risks sanctioning illegal activities abroad by the Navy and other agencies to disrupt and forcibly turn back on-water asylum seekers. Where do <a href="https://www.immi.gov.au/visas/humanitarian/family-reunion.htm">family reunions</a> and the <a href="https://www.immi.gov.au/visas/humanitarian/offshore/shp.htm">Special Humanitarian Program</a> fit into the new hard-nosed immigration framework? </p>
<p>There has been almost no public discussion of these far-reaching changes in doctrine and organisation. However, these developments will significantly change Australia.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36427/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Kevin 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 Australian government is in the throes of a major recasting of traditional immigration and border security doctrines and institutions. The changes are being led by the incoming secretary of the newly…Tony Kevin, Emeritus Fellow, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/329392014-10-14T19:32:23Z2014-10-14T19:32:23ZAustralia’s folly returns Afghan Hazaras to torture and death<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61580/original/ryv4r74m-1413244315.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hazaras have long been persecuted in Afghanistan, but those returned from countries like Australia are in particular danger of being tortured and murdered.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Afghans_of_Day_Kundi_in_2009.jpg">Wikimedia Commons/ISAF Public Affairs Office</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been a bad time lately for Afghan Hazaras with Australian connections. In late September, the shocking news came through that the Taliban had tortured and murdered an Australian of Afghan background, Sayed Habib Musawi. The Taliban had stopped the bus on which he was travelling in rural Afghanistan and pulled him from it. </p>
<p>In an <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2014/s4096300.htm">interview with the ABC</a>, the deputy governor of Ghazni province where the killing took place, Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, flatly stated:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of course the reason is that he was an Afghan-Australian … He came from a country that the Taliban thinks is an infidel country. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hard on the heels of this tragic report came another story, in its own way even more disturbing. At least in the case of Musawi, it was his own decision, however fateful, that resulted in his being in Afghanistan. This was not the case with Zainullah Naseri, whose horrific experiences were recounted in <a href="http://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2014/10/04/taliban-tortures-abbott-government-deportee/14123448001068#.VDts4aVOdHg">The Saturday Paper</a> by Sydney-based freelance journalist and photographer Abdul Karim Hekmat.</p>
<p>On August 26 2014, Naseri was deported to Afghanistan from Australia. This was despite last-minute efforts in the Federal Circuit Court to prevent the Department of Immigration and Border Protection from removing him. In mid-September, seeking to travel to the district in Ghazni where his family lived, he was seized by six Taliban, tortured and — on the strength of his Australian driver’s licence and pictures in his mobile phone of the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge — accused of being an infidel.</p>
<p>I have seen photos, not published in the press, of the injuries Naseri sustained from the Taliban’s vicious beating. Only by a stroke of good luck, namely the outbreak of fighting in the immediate vicinity that distracted the Taliban’s attention, was he able to escape.</p>
<p>The experiences of Sayed Habib Musawi and Zainullah Naseri are not surprising to anyone familiar with the long history of persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan. While some Afghans of non-Hazara background have on occasion sought to play this down, the evidence is both clear and chilling. </p>
<h2>A long history of killings and persecution</h2>
<p>Hazaras have a distinctive physical appearance and are known to be overwhelmingly members of the Shiite Muslim minority. This has left them doubly exposed. </p>
<p>In August 1998, the Taliban <a href="http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports98/afghan/Afrepor0.htm">massacred 2000 Hazaras</a> in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. The analyst Ahmed Rashid <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=kIBgqHWq658C&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=%22genocidal+in+its+ferocity%22+Rashid&source=bl&ots=jYlUzN_fnZ&sig=h3b7OoDCx9KR_5rGlCeNvqA0sKg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=dWg8VKm3N9fh8AWZ9YDgDg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22genocidal%20in%20its%20ferocity%22%20Rashid&f=false">described the massacre</a> as “genocidal in its ferocity”. </p>
<p>Killings of Hazaras have continued since the overthrow of the Taliban regime in late 2001. For example, as <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/25/us-afghanistan-beheading-idUSTRE65O2ML20100625">reported by Reuters</a> newsagency:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Afghanistan, June 25 - The bodies of 11 men, their heads cut off and placed next to them, have been found in a violent southern province of Afghanistan, a senior police official said on Friday. A police patrol discovered the bodies on Thursday in the Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province, north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, said police official Mohammad Gulab Wardak. “This was the work of the Taliban. They beheaded these men because they were ethnic Hazaras and Shi’ite Muslims,” he said.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On December 6 2011, a <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16046079">suicide bomber attacked</a> Shiite Hazaras at a place of commemoration in central Kabul during the Ashura festival, which marks the anniversary of the Battle of Karbala in 680 AD. Almost simultaneously, a bomb in Mazar-e Sharif also killed Hazaras. The Kabul bomb killed at least 55 people and the Mazar bomb four more. </p>
<p>The Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini was awarded the <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2012-Breaking-News-Photography">2012 Pulitzer Prize</a> for his photograph of the aftermath of the Kabul atrocity. But many other killings of course go unreported in Western news services and escape the attention of Western embassies behind their sandbags and blast-proof walls in Kabul.</p>
<h2>Refugee rulings defy DFAT warnings</h2>
<p>Zainullah Naseri’s experience highlights a very peculiar dimension of official Australian analyses of Afghanistan. Different agencies seem to live in different worlds. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61579/original/msmkktmy-1413243457.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=320&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The DFAT Smartraveller website warns in stark terms that all of Afghanistan is unsafe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:m_42-oXu4WYJ:smartraveller.gov.au/advice/afghanistan+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au">DFAT</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade warns in the starkest terms of the dangers of travel to Afghanistan. In its <a href="http://www.smartraveller.gov.au/zw-cgi/view/Advice/Afghanistan">“Do not travel” advice dated September 16 2014</a>, DFAT writes of “the extremely dangerous security situation and the very high threat of terrorist attack”. Attacks, DFAT notes, “can occur anywhere, any time” and: “No province can be considered immune from violence.” Furthermore, DFAT warns:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Overland travel is dangerous. Taliban and al-Qa'ida members are active in many parts of the country, thereby creating a significant security risk.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These are prescient comments indeed. However, warnings of this kind, which DFAT has been voicing for a long time, seem to have had precious little impact on the handling of Naseri’s application for refugee protection. </p>
<p>His case <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/RRTA/2012/1116.html">was assessed</a> by a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal, Paul Millar, in December 2012. Millar expressed no doubts about Naseri’s credibility, but inadvertently showed how those who lack a “feel” for the situation in a disrupted state such as Afghanistan can get things horribly wrong. In effect, he narrowed his focus to the possibility of there being a safe route from Kabul to Naseri’s district:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Tribunal is only considering the route for the applicant to make a journey from Kabul back to his native area. In those circumstances, the Tribunal accepts that the applicant is at risk as a Hazara of suffering harm in making that journey but the Tribunal finds that the level of risk does not reach the threshold of a real chance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Millar added that “country information before the Tribunal is to the effect that Afghans who return to their country after seeking asylum in Western countries are not targeted for harm on that basis”. </p>
<h2>No Hazara can safely return to Afghanistan</h2>
<p>Given what happened to Sayed Habib Musawi and Zainullah Naseri, there is a terrifying irony in such comments. Naseri should never have been forced back to Afghanistan, essentially because the fluidity of the situation there militates <em>fundamentally</em> against the kind of bold confidence that the Refugee Review Tribunal put on display. The decision that led to Naseri’s removal was deeply flawed when it was made, and badly out of date by the time he was removed.</p>
<p>On August 6 2013, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) affirmed this point in new <a href="http://www.refworld.org/docid/51ffdca34.html">Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-seekers from Afghanistan</a>. These state that “while the conflict was previously located in the south and east, it now affects most parts of the country”, and point to the “volatility and fluidity of the armed conflict in Afghanistan in terms of the difficulty of identifying potential areas of relocation that are durably safe”. The guidelines identify “men and boys of fighting age” as potentially being in need of international protection, along with “members of minority religious groups”. </p>
<p>As long as this remains the case — and there is no sign that things are likely to change any time soon — there should be an absolute moratorium on the involuntary removal of Hazara asylum seekers to Afghanistan.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32939/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Maley is a member of the Board of the Refugee Council of Australia. </span></em></p>It has been a bad time lately for Afghan Hazaras with Australian connections. In late September, the shocking news came through that the Taliban had tortured and murdered an Australian of Afghan background…William Maley, Professor and Director, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/324892014-10-07T00:50:45Z2014-10-07T00:50:45ZUnfamiliar pasts challenge our view of responses to refugees<p>How do Australian institutions and political leaders draw on history to tell us who we are? How do they make sense of Australia’s past as a country of immigration and a nation that has accommodated hundreds of thousands of refugees?</p>
<p>In federal parliament, Teresa Gambaro <a href="http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr/89bbc84e-d632-4f44-974d-194bc08b5a26/0281/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf">recently said</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Australia has always had a very proud record in terms of offshore humanitarian programs. We are one of the most generous countries in the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Liberal member for Brisbane wasn’t particularly original when she made that statement. She was rehashing something that Australian political leaders have said ad nauseam for at least the past 60 years. But that shouldn’t stop historians from questioning the purpose and the legitimacy of her words.</p>
<p>Gambaro evoked a supposedly generous record in resettling refugees in the context of justifying Australia’s <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/unlawful-deliveries">harsh border protection regime</a>. In my view, Australia’s “proud record” in its response to refugees and asylum seekers in the past has no place in an argument for a particular response to refugees and asylum seekers in the present. Past and present must not become elements of a zero-sum game, whereby generosity in one outweighs cruelty in the other.</p>
<p>Historians also ought to ask: “Is the claim that Australia has always been generous, actually accurate?” I have <a href="http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/swin:952">long argued</a> that it isn’t – at least as far as the government’s <em>motivation</em> for resettling refugees was concerned.</p>
<p>Until the late 1960s, Australia resettled refugees because it wanted immigrants. It selected refugees who were young, healthy and able to work or bear children. Ever since then, refugees’ “integration potential” and foreign policy objectives have often outweighed humanitarian considerations. </p>
<p>Our narratives about the past make sense of and confirm ideas we have about ourselves. Such sense-making histories are both limited and limiting. </p>
<p>They are limited because they look at the past through the prism of the present and treat the past as something that eventually became the present. They are limiting because they tend to make us believe that as the present emerges smoothly out of the past, the future emerges seamlessly out of the present. Such a view of what was and what will be can make it difficult to imagine alternative futures that are radically different from our present.</p>
<p>Hindsight encourages us to focus on one particular pathway. I am in favour of adopting the vantage point of the past, not least in order to be able to pay attention to pasts that seemingly went nowhere. </p>
<p>I am saying that not as somebody who is uninterested in the present. To the contrary: I am keenly interested in what is happening today. It is this that makes me sceptical about histories that conceive of the past only as a precursor of the present.</p>
<h2>Refugee rights in retrospect look different now from then</h2>
<p>Let me illustrate my point. The conventional narrative has it that in the late 1940s and early 1950s, governments around the world heeded the lessons of the Holocaust and agreed on a convention that defined refugees, and then accorded them certain rights. But that’s the result of retrospective sense-making: because <em>now</em> we acknowledge the centrality of the Holocaust in 20th-century history and because the <a href="http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html">1951 Refugee Convention</a> is <em>now</em> used to distinguish between refugees and other irregular migrants.</p>
<p>If we looked not backwards from the vantage point of 2014, but forwards from the vantage point of, say, 1948, that narrative would make little sense. Those drafting the Refugee Convention were not guided in their thinking by the idea that the convention would prevent a repeat of the Holocaust because it would allow refugees (and would-be refugees) to successfully seek the protection of other countries. Rather, they wanted to create an instrument that could be used to provide a legal framework for the resettlement of European displaced persons, the so-called DPs.</p>
<p>But there was an international instrument designed to protect people seeking asylum: the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights – or rather, earlier drafts of that declaration. “Everyone has the right to seek and be granted, in other countries, asylum from persecution,” one of those drafts said. This is also what <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a14">Article 14 (1)</a> of the 1948 Universal Declaration says, except that the words “and be granted” were replaced by the almost meaningless “and to enjoy”.</p>
<p>Why is the original intention of those drafting the Universal Declaration important now? Because we have lost sight of the right to asylum, which was discussed not only in the lead-up to the Universal Declaration, but also throughout the 1950s and 1960s. A rediscovery of a truncated trajectory could make us rethink aspects of the current refugee and asylum seeker regime.</p>
<h2>Do we let the status quo decide the future?</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60826/original/gyw7gj7x-1412554496.JPEG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We have lost sight of the right to asylum as part of a legal framework to resettle people displaced by war and persecution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Navy/Phil Eggman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, history is useful because it can confound expectations and make not just the past but also the present appear unfamiliar. </p>
<p>Here is an example: once upon a time, many boats carrying asylum seekers arrived in the middle of an Australian election campaign. There were six boats within 24 hours. Political leaders talked of queue jumpers, of a flood of “boat people”, of economic migrants masquerading as refugees, and of Australia’s right to determine who enters the country. Newspaper editorials and politicians demanded that the boats be sent back. Public and published opinion was overwhelmingly in favour of more stringent border control measures.</p>
<p>Nine days out from the election, with the government narrowly leading in the polls, a senior government minister gave a radio interview. The interviewer reminded the minister that people in the part of Australia where most of the boats had landed had raised serious concerns. “Indeed they have,” the minister said, “but they are not the government.”</p>
<p>The incredulous interviewer then said: “You have no suggestions at all that we should be stopping these boats from coming in?” The minister, who was, I repeat, a very senior member of the government, responded: “None whatsoever.”</p>
<p>He obviously thought it was preposterous to assume that good public policy ought to be guided by public opinion. The minister and his government got away with it and won the elections.</p>
<p>In this case, history could teach us not to accept the status quo as natural. Contrary to what is now generally assumed, it may well be possible for good public policy to be ahead of public opinion – in fact to provide the kind of leadership that ought to inform public opinion. It may also be possible to advocate a humane refugee and asylum seeker policy and not be punished at the ballot box.</p>
<p>To recapitulate: history can be useful in at least three respects. It helps us to demystify the stories we tell about ourselves; it teaches us about seemingly inconsequential pasts and thus allows us to imagine alternative futures; and it allows us to see the present in a new light – as something that does not need to be taken for granted.</p>
<p>PS: Historians shouldn’t tell fairy tales. As I have detailed <a href="http://insidestory.org.au/queue-jumpers-and-the-perils-of-crossing-sydney-harbour-on-a-manly-ferry">elsewhere</a>, the government minister who thought that refugee policy did not need to be guided by vox populi was Andrew Peacock, on December 1, 1977.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Readers can <a href="http://www.hss.adelaide.edu.au/historypolitics/hostel-stories/">learn more here</a> about the “Hostel Stories” project, which gave rise to this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32489/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This article is the revised version of a talk Klaus Neumann was invited to give by the University of Adelaide's "Hostel Stories" project, which has been supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant.</span></em></p>How do Australian institutions and political leaders draw on history to tell us who we are? How do they make sense of Australia’s past as a country of immigration and a nation that has accommodated hundreds…Klaus Neumann, Professor of History, Swinburne Institute for Social Research, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.