John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday we saw the government withdraw the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006. The Australian statute books are better off without it. The bill was intended to be part of the ramshackle hodgepodge of migration legislation cobbled together by a government that puts its own political fortunes ahead of good law, good governance, human rights, international obligations and plain common sense. The bill would have used some of the most vulnerable people in the world as a political bargaining chip. It was procedurally flawed and ethically bankrupt. That is, of course, no surprise when it comes to the Howard government’s shameful record on border protection.

Last January, a leaky boat carrying 43 asylum seekers came ashore on Cape York. DIMA assessed their cases based on their individual circumstances and found that 42 of the 43 had a legitimate claim for protection from persecution. In other words, they were refugees, and in accordance with Australian law, international law and DIMA procedures they were granted protection visas. The government of Indonesia interpreted the granting of these visas as an endorsement of the Papuan independence movement. That is their right; they can interpret Australian legal findings any way they want. They can complain about them too, if they wish. So far it is all very straightforward.

But what happened next was very far from straightforward. It was certainly a long way from the kind of accountability and transparency that are the hallmarks of good governance. What happened next was that the Howard government decided that Indonesia will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. In order to appease the Indonesian government’s demands that Australia reject Papuan asylum seekers, the Howard government decided to excise the Australian coastline from the Australian migration zone. For immigration purposes, Australia’s coastline would not be part of Australia. I suppose someone should tell that to the backpackers on Bondi Beach.

Under the Howard government’s now withdrawn bill, any asylum seekers who arrived by boat would have been shipped off to Nauru or wherever else the Howard government could find. That would have been whether or not Australia was the first piece of land they came to and regardless of the strength of their claim for asylum. The logic behind, firstly, mandatory detention and, secondly, offshore processing was that asylum seekers, so the Howard government alleged, had bypassed safe countries in pursuit of lifestyle outcomes. That argument, ignoring as it does the realities of international people movements and population displacement, was never a particularly strong reason for locking people, including children, behind barbed wire, where, as we have recently learned, they were often subject to violence and abuse.

But, thin as it is, no-one can even pretend that that justification applies to refugees from Papua. There is no question that Australia is the country of first refuge for them. Yet it is these very asylum seekers who were the cause for the Howard government’s panic-stricken bill. Why? Because Minister Vanstone said that they might stage political protests. It seems that refugees can lose their human right to protection if they are suspected of harbouring political views that this government finds embarrassing.

This is typical of the Howard government’s politicisation of immigration and border protection. The use of refugees for the basest political ends has seen DIMA develop a punitive ‘detain first, ask questions later’ attitude. More than 20 Australian citizens have been locked up in immigration detention. More than 200 people who were legally in this country and peacefully going about their business have found themselves behind the razor wire. The system is broken. It is secretive, flawed, dangerous and politicised. Every part of DIMA is contorted and bent to suit the Howard government’s political ends.

The Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee could not get straight answers out of the department on how the bill would operate. This was particularly concerning, given how scanty a framework the legislation provided. The committee noted:

... uncertainty about how the proposed arrangements will work ... domestic policy issues such as the Bill’s flagrant incompatibility with the rule of law ... the potential breach of Australia’s obligations under international law in a number of key areas; and arguments that the bill is an inappropriate response to what is essentially a foreign policy issue.

That is what the committee said. The committee finished by saying:

Given the evidence received and compounded by the lack of information before it, the committee considers that it is preferable that the Bill not proceed.

That reasoned conclusion fell on deaf ears. The Howard government was not interested in the slightest in what they consider piffling obstacles—like the rule of law, like international obligations, like determining our own immigration and foreign policy, and like basic human decency. Instead the government chose to slap one more bandaid on the shambling, decrepit mess that is its hopelessly politicised, incompetently administered and fundamentally bankrupt immigration policy. But finally Mr Howard’s own backbenchers said enough is enough. Finally Mr Howard’s own party turned on him. And finally I am pleased to say that Mr Howard’s humiliation on this issue is complete.