Phil Glendenning, a very passionate and experienced human rights activist and director of the Edmund Rice Centre, was a guest lecturer in "Human Rights and Australian Politics" yesterday. It was, indeed, a very "high-quality" presentation.
Q&A this week featured Chris Bowen, Christopher Pyne (the pig-weasel), Craig Reucassel, Dr Leslie Cannold (a bio-ethicist), and the editor of Women's Weekly were on the panel. Snide and underhand; childish, picking on grammatical errors or slight semantic contradictions. Anyway, the main issue they discussed was Australia's immigration policy - the processing of asylum seekers, boat people, detention centres.
One question from the audience: "My point is if you're coming through... don't get me wrong I support people coming to Australia... do it the right way. If you want to come through the back door, don't come! ...We used to let in 3 boats a year. Now we're letting in 3 boats a week. Where are we going wrong?"
Alex Dore, a second year International & Global Studies student at the University of Sydney and the Coalition's 2010 federal election candidate for the Sydney seat of Grayndler, posted a facebook status yesterday afternoon:
What has stuck with me the most from Glendenning's lecture was his emphasis on transparency and the truth. In his time, Malcolm Fraser called for bipartisan support for Australia's taking in and protection of those fleeing prosecution in their home country. The Immigration and Shadow Immigration Ministers toured the country educating Australians about our responsibility to asylum seekers, that there's nothing to fear in their coming here, that their numbers won't overcrowd our community. John Howard, the then-Treasurer, was the only member of government to speak up against the idea. Today, there is bi-partisan support for more detention centres! From the question asked in Q&A and Dore's status I think it wouldn't be a stretch to suggest that many ordinary Australians think all boat people are illegal arrivals and the boats should be stopped, not only are they illegal but they are security and population threats.
Australia accepts about 0.4% of all the asylum seekers in the world every year. We accept less than Kazakhstan and Djibouti. Less than 6 per cent of asylum seekers reach Australia by boat (we'd been told it was even less by various sources during the election but this is what he said). Asylum seekers are not illegal whether they arrive from boat or by plane - Australian Commonwealth law recognises the legality of a person's arrival here if they are seeking asylum. They are kept in detention as their application is being processed, not because they are illegal and we just like to hold them for 5 years before sending them back. The vast majority do not have possession of their official papers and their application involves a lengthy process of interviews.
Where is Australian policy deficient? On a number of occasions, we have wrongly ruled that the grounds on which applicants have sought asylum are not valid or serious enough. We've sent them back without tracking their movements. Glendenning has been involved in efforts to track down knocked-back asylum seekers and many of them were in fact executed when found back in their original country. One instance in Colombia, the man didn't even get out of the airport.
Alex Dore assumes our Department's autonomous and objective decision-making integrity. He ignores (or is ignorant of) the complex political process that precedes their decisions. Knock-backs are not as straightforward as they sound. The war against terror has somehow bound "asylum seekers" with "terrorists". It has become politically unpopular to support refugee rights. This has been dictated by election cycles - "two people died so John Howard could be re-elected in 2004". One, an Afghani, had his successful application taken away from him when the Tampa and the bad publicity came. Glendenning met him when the man was still being held on Nauru. Glendenning was the one who told the man's mother what happened to him. This was not a whine from the marginalised and oppressed but an anecdote from a middle-class professional white Australian man. He was extremely genuine when he told us of his experiences, he didn't sound like he was preaching or pleading.
Australia is less open than New Zealand, Great Britain, Canada and the United States. "What is it that these countries get about about compassion, that we don't". Is it because these people hold up a mirror that reminds us of our migrant colonial past? Without transparency and the truth, ordinary Australians will continue to believe and to assume that our government is protecting our borders from threats. "Human rights has a human face". It's a global issue, and we've got to catch up.
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