Thursday, July 03, 2014 9:31:26 PM
Australia and you: Labor needs to rethink asylum seeker policy
.. we are all complicit in the world refugee problem .. all countries have been/are beset by the politically and socially divisive question of how to treat those who seek safety from physical, or economic, or social stress and/or danger in other countries .. all refugees are all of ours .. yep, the USA sees far greater numbers than Australia, yet other countries share many more .. Turkey, Lebanon, Greece for three (guessing, not checked, anyway it's not that important .. :)) .. questions around those in Australia have much if not all overlap with debate in the USA, so content of debate here is similar to content of debate there .. aside: you guys, i think, now in this area rate higher on the humanity scale than Australia does .. it hurts, but truth does sometimes .. i know y'all will see parallels, so i hope you will find this Australian stuff interesting, and useful, too .. grin ..
Date January 3, 2014
Mike Richards Comments 45
A new year should see Labor take some moral leadership on the treatment of refugees.
Syrian refugees outside a makeshift home in Ankara. Photo: AFP
The start of a year is all about new beginnings, so here's my New Year's submission: with fresh new leadership and at least three years in opposition to get its act together, the Labor Party has to make a decisive break with its recent past, hit the policy reset button and restore some moral leadership over this country's treatment of asylum seekers. The onus on Labor is greater because there's no chance of a more enlightened policy from the Coalition, and Labor should know better.
Labor's sorry history on this issue began with its cave-in to the Howard government's post-9/11 stampede of moral panic over Tampa in 2001. Since then, Labor in opposition and government has tinkered with the policy - a little less harsh here, a lot more punitive there - but the fundamental problem remains: Labor (and Coalition) policy is deeply flawed, contrary to our international obligations under the United Nations refugee convention, and the practical treatment of asylum seekers, including vulnerable children, is completely at odds with basic standards of human decency. In essence, Labor has shared with the Coalition a policy approach that abuses and dehumanises asylum seekers to achieve the political and policy outcome of deterrence.
How did shared national policy get to this position? Asylum seeker policy is complex and both major political parties have followed a brutal logic in asserting the precedence of border protection over humane treatment of asylum seekers. The logic goes something like this: Australia - democratic, multicultural and free - stands as a beacon to forcibly displaced people in troubled nation states in the Middle East and elsewhere that have been racked by war, and worsening sectarian enmities and civil conflict (think Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Sudan, among others).
An open-border policy for Australia - the belief runs - would mean Australia potentially could end up as the haven of choice for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, with no means to resist. The brutal logic is this: if we make it harsh enough for asylum seekers, and remove any prospect of their successful resettlement in Australia, we can hold back the expected huge tide of unauthorised boat arrivals. That's the real underlying policy objective that unites the asylum seeker approaches of Labor and the Coalition.
There is a political overlay, as well, in which Labor has been too easily captive to the party machine men, who say it is electoral suicide, particularly in western Sydney, to adopt a more liberal approach to the treatment of asylum seekers once they have arrived. One rationale is the supposed status anxiety of other newly arrived migrants who feel threatened by asylum seekers taking their jobs and hard-won economic position.
Another is the supposed envy of working people who resent the idea of government bestowing benefits on asylum seekers - benefits not available to them. Or they say the asylum seekers are queue jumpers taking the place of others waiting for family reunion visas or the like. More recently, the new humanitarian rationale has been that drownings at sea are tragic and unacceptable, and asylum seekers need to be dissuaded from attempting hazardous voyages in unseaworthy boats. That is certainly true, but insufficient as a broader policy defence.
There are no easy political solutions to this matter, but there are sound principles rather than magic bullets to draw on. Importantly, we have to ask the right question, which is actually not ''how do we stop the boats?'', nor ''how do we destroy the business model of people smugglers?'', but ''how do we give effect to Australia's moral and international legal obligations and responsibilities to provide safety and protection to asylum seekers?''
The refugee issue is a global one, and there have to be new attempts to forge international approaches and agreements on the acute challenges we all face. Leaving aside ''internally displaced persons'', who have not crossed international borders seeking asylum and are unlikely to do so, the UNHCR estimates there are almost 16 million refugees and about a million asylum seekers worldwide. Those numbers have grown because of increasing levels of conflict and persecution.
Clearly, this country has to do more in accepting our share of refugees. In the past two decades, Australia has received only 3 per cent of asylum seekers worldwide; the overwhelming ''burden'' on receiving nations falls unequally on neighbouring, developing countries. Australia is ranked - by GDP per capita, as a surrogate for capacity to accommodate refugees - only 18th of 44 countries receiving asylum applications. That implies Australia should increase its share of refugees, which had been set at 13,000 for many years. It was raised under Labor to 20,000 in 2012, but the Abbott government is reducing it again to 13,750. It is too low and should be substantially increased.
Finally, there has to be a rebalancing of the deterrence/treatment equation. While managing asylum seeker arrivals, we have to ensure asylum seekers are humanely treated, their refugee claims are fairly assessed and that, if accepted, refugees have a realistic prospect of resettlement within a reasonable period. If that means the deterrence value of the policy is put at risk, so be it - because the brutal logic of deterrence has seen our asylum seeker policy degenerate to a morally corrosive regime of ever more barbaric treatment of vulnerable people who have sought our help.
We Australians are better than that.
Mike Richards is a management consultant, a former associate editor of The
Age and former chief of staff to Labor leaders at the state and federal level.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/labor-needs-to-rethink-asylum-seeker-policy-20140102-307j9.html
===
Neither party's policy offers a real solution
Date August 17, 2013
Michael Gordon
Political editor, The Age
One of Scott Morrison's more contentious observations on Friday was that asylum seekers in the community on bridging visas would be among the most enthusiastic about a Kevin Rudd victory on September 7.
He has to be kidding. The truth of it, if you are among the 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived between August 13 last year, when Julia Gillard introduced the ''no advantage'' principle, and July 19 this year, when Rudd announced the PNG solution, is that your prospects are bleak whoever wins.
So let's imagine you are sitting in the unfurnished flat you share with several others in the same situation and have a clean sheet of paper and a pen. On one side you write the pros and cons of a Rudd victory; on the other, you do the same for Tony Abbott.
Under Rudd, the policy is that you will be given no advantage over those who stayed in transit countries to have their claims processed, so you face the prospect of about five years without any hope of being reunited with family members or being able to work. You cannot even have the dignity of working for a welfare payment of about $205 a week.
If your fear of persecution is found to be real, it could be many years before you are able to be reunited with your wife or children because you will go to the back of a very long queue. Past experience suggests your mental state will deteriorate and you will struggle when a ''normal'' life is finally offered.
Under Abbott, you will be processed and, if your claim is upheld, given a temporary protection visa (TPV) with no family reunion rights. But you will be able to work and you can dream of being joined by your family if they risk their lives, get on boats and are prepared for a long stint on Nauru or Manus Island.
In fact, the experience of the Pacific Solution suggests that TPVs will be a ''pull factor'' that entices families to get on boats to stay together, with the inevitable result of more drownings.
If you cannot find work, you will receive an equivalent of work for the dole, which might offer a degree of satisfaction. Abbott insists you will never be afforded permanent residency or facilitated family reunion, but you should know that Philip Ruddock said the same thing in 2001 [under John Howard]and later relented.
After mulling the pros and cons with your flatmates, chances are you will scratch your head, follow the example of many mainstream Australians, and disengage.
The truth is that the major parties are engaged in a cruelty bidding war that is based on the notion that if you punish one group of people (those who come by boat) you will change the behaviour of another (those yet to flee their homes or still in transit).
Both policies are problematic. Rudd cannot deliver on his vow that no one who arrived after July 19 will end up being settled in Australia and Abbott's cannot remove the access of asylum seekers to the courts.
Both policies are also based on the proposition that, if the punishment is severe enough, you will stop the boats and end the drownings at sea. If this purpose is achieved, the challenge of finding a real, durable, regional solution to the problem of people being forced to flee their homelands will remain unresolved.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/neither-partys-policy-offers-a-real-solution-20130816-2s28j.html
===
Scott Morrison to seek to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas for refugees
Updated Sun 22 Jun 2014, 11:01pm AEST
The Federal Government will seek to restore Temporary Protection Visas for refugees after the High Court rejected its current policy of restricting the number of permanent visas available.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison capped the number of permanent visas at 2,773 per year after the Senate blocked the Government's attempts to re-introduce TPVs.
Mr Morrison says the Government will again seek to re-introduce the Howard-era TPVs because it is what the public wants.
"The High Court decision was not unexpected and the contingencies have been in place to deal with the next phase," he said.
---
Inside Zaatari refugee camp
Foreign Correspondent's Sophie McNeill goes inside Syrian refugee
camp Zaatari, one of the world's largest refugee safe havens.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-10/inside-zaatari-one-of-worlds-largest-refugee-camps/5506792
---
"The easiest way for this to be done is for the Greens and Labor to stop blocking the mandate that this Government received at the last election and to support the Temporary Protection Visas that Australians voted for."
The move will have to pass a new-look Senate, with the balance of power in the Upper House set to change next month.
TPVs allow refugees to stay in Australia for three years before facing a review of their refugee status.
The Greens and refugee advocacy groups argue against TPVs, saying the uncertainty associated with temporary visas can contribute to ongoing mental health problems.
The High Court ruling followed separate applications to the court from two asylum seekers - an Ethiopian boy and a Pakistani man - who were found to be refugees but denied visas because of the cap.
It found the Minister did not have the power to limit the number of visas issued within a specific financial year, and ordered Mr Morrison reconsider the asylum seekers' applications for protection.
Mr Morrison says the Government can do that while maintaining its policy stance, but he is refusing to say how.
"The Australian Government's policy has not changed. No-one who has come illegally to Australia by boat will get a permanent visa from this Government," he said.
Melbourne rally calls for end to offshore processing
Meanwhile, about 1,000 people gathered in Melbourne's CBD on Sunday to protest against Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and to call for an end to offshore processing.
Protesters carried signs with pictures of Leo Semanpillai, a Tamil asylum seeker on a bridging visa, who died of self-inflicted burns earlier this month.
---
Photo: The protest called for mercy for asylum seekers and fair processing of their applications. (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-22/women-with-sign-at-melbourne-refugee-rally/5541988
---
The protesters marched through the city centre chanting: "We won't stop until we free refugees."
Refugee advocate and nun Brigid Arthur told the crowd that Australia's policies amounted to torture.
"When a nation determines it is acceptable for children to be incarcerated, then that nation needs to start questioning what it means," she said.
Mr Morrison told Parliament earlier this month that the number of children in detention was fewer than 1,000 and had fallen by a third since the election.
Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt called for faster processing of asylum seeker claims.
"Lets process people's claims efficiently, quickly and fairly," he said.
"Instead of locking people up in island prisons, where it seems that under this Government's watch someone can be beaten to death with impunity, let's welcome people into the community and process them here."
.. note there is a bit on the High Court decision inside bottom ..
First posted Sun 22 Jun 2014, 8:23am AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-22/morrison-to-seek-to-reintroduce-tpvs-for-refugees/5541576
===
What’s a bridging visa?
Amber Jamieson | Oct 14, 2011 1:05PM
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/10/14/crikey-clarifier-whats-a-bridging-visa/
See also:
Zaatari refugee camp here, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91504425
.. we are all complicit in the world refugee problem .. all countries have been/are beset by the politically and socially divisive question of how to treat those who seek safety from physical, or economic, or social stress and/or danger in other countries .. all refugees are all of ours .. yep, the USA sees far greater numbers than Australia, yet other countries share many more .. Turkey, Lebanon, Greece for three (guessing, not checked, anyway it's not that important .. :)) .. questions around those in Australia have much if not all overlap with debate in the USA, so content of debate here is similar to content of debate there .. aside: you guys, i think, now in this area rate higher on the humanity scale than Australia does .. it hurts, but truth does sometimes .. i know y'all will see parallels, so i hope you will find this Australian stuff interesting, and useful, too .. grin ..
Date January 3, 2014
Mike Richards Comments 45
A new year should see Labor take some moral leadership on the treatment of refugees.
Syrian refugees outside a makeshift home in Ankara. Photo: AFP
The start of a year is all about new beginnings, so here's my New Year's submission: with fresh new leadership and at least three years in opposition to get its act together, the Labor Party has to make a decisive break with its recent past, hit the policy reset button and restore some moral leadership over this country's treatment of asylum seekers. The onus on Labor is greater because there's no chance of a more enlightened policy from the Coalition, and Labor should know better.
Labor's sorry history on this issue began with its cave-in to the Howard government's post-9/11 stampede of moral panic over Tampa in 2001. Since then, Labor in opposition and government has tinkered with the policy - a little less harsh here, a lot more punitive there - but the fundamental problem remains: Labor (and Coalition) policy is deeply flawed, contrary to our international obligations under the United Nations refugee convention, and the practical treatment of asylum seekers, including vulnerable children, is completely at odds with basic standards of human decency. In essence, Labor has shared with the Coalition a policy approach that abuses and dehumanises asylum seekers to achieve the political and policy outcome of deterrence.
How did shared national policy get to this position? Asylum seeker policy is complex and both major political parties have followed a brutal logic in asserting the precedence of border protection over humane treatment of asylum seekers. The logic goes something like this: Australia - democratic, multicultural and free - stands as a beacon to forcibly displaced people in troubled nation states in the Middle East and elsewhere that have been racked by war, and worsening sectarian enmities and civil conflict (think Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Sudan, among others).
An open-border policy for Australia - the belief runs - would mean Australia potentially could end up as the haven of choice for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers, with no means to resist. The brutal logic is this: if we make it harsh enough for asylum seekers, and remove any prospect of their successful resettlement in Australia, we can hold back the expected huge tide of unauthorised boat arrivals. That's the real underlying policy objective that unites the asylum seeker approaches of Labor and the Coalition.
There is a political overlay, as well, in which Labor has been too easily captive to the party machine men, who say it is electoral suicide, particularly in western Sydney, to adopt a more liberal approach to the treatment of asylum seekers once they have arrived. One rationale is the supposed status anxiety of other newly arrived migrants who feel threatened by asylum seekers taking their jobs and hard-won economic position.
Another is the supposed envy of working people who resent the idea of government bestowing benefits on asylum seekers - benefits not available to them. Or they say the asylum seekers are queue jumpers taking the place of others waiting for family reunion visas or the like. More recently, the new humanitarian rationale has been that drownings at sea are tragic and unacceptable, and asylum seekers need to be dissuaded from attempting hazardous voyages in unseaworthy boats. That is certainly true, but insufficient as a broader policy defence.
There are no easy political solutions to this matter, but there are sound principles rather than magic bullets to draw on. Importantly, we have to ask the right question, which is actually not ''how do we stop the boats?'', nor ''how do we destroy the business model of people smugglers?'', but ''how do we give effect to Australia's moral and international legal obligations and responsibilities to provide safety and protection to asylum seekers?''
The refugee issue is a global one, and there have to be new attempts to forge international approaches and agreements on the acute challenges we all face. Leaving aside ''internally displaced persons'', who have not crossed international borders seeking asylum and are unlikely to do so, the UNHCR estimates there are almost 16 million refugees and about a million asylum seekers worldwide. Those numbers have grown because of increasing levels of conflict and persecution.
Clearly, this country has to do more in accepting our share of refugees. In the past two decades, Australia has received only 3 per cent of asylum seekers worldwide; the overwhelming ''burden'' on receiving nations falls unequally on neighbouring, developing countries. Australia is ranked - by GDP per capita, as a surrogate for capacity to accommodate refugees - only 18th of 44 countries receiving asylum applications. That implies Australia should increase its share of refugees, which had been set at 13,000 for many years. It was raised under Labor to 20,000 in 2012, but the Abbott government is reducing it again to 13,750. It is too low and should be substantially increased.
Finally, there has to be a rebalancing of the deterrence/treatment equation. While managing asylum seeker arrivals, we have to ensure asylum seekers are humanely treated, their refugee claims are fairly assessed and that, if accepted, refugees have a realistic prospect of resettlement within a reasonable period. If that means the deterrence value of the policy is put at risk, so be it - because the brutal logic of deterrence has seen our asylum seeker policy degenerate to a morally corrosive regime of ever more barbaric treatment of vulnerable people who have sought our help.
We Australians are better than that.
Mike Richards is a management consultant, a former associate editor of The
Age and former chief of staff to Labor leaders at the state and federal level.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/labor-needs-to-rethink-asylum-seeker-policy-20140102-307j9.html
===
Neither party's policy offers a real solution
Date August 17, 2013
Michael Gordon
Political editor, The Age
One of Scott Morrison's more contentious observations on Friday was that asylum seekers in the community on bridging visas would be among the most enthusiastic about a Kevin Rudd victory on September 7.
He has to be kidding. The truth of it, if you are among the 30,000 asylum seekers who arrived between August 13 last year, when Julia Gillard introduced the ''no advantage'' principle, and July 19 this year, when Rudd announced the PNG solution, is that your prospects are bleak whoever wins.
So let's imagine you are sitting in the unfurnished flat you share with several others in the same situation and have a clean sheet of paper and a pen. On one side you write the pros and cons of a Rudd victory; on the other, you do the same for Tony Abbott.
Under Rudd, the policy is that you will be given no advantage over those who stayed in transit countries to have their claims processed, so you face the prospect of about five years without any hope of being reunited with family members or being able to work. You cannot even have the dignity of working for a welfare payment of about $205 a week.
If your fear of persecution is found to be real, it could be many years before you are able to be reunited with your wife or children because you will go to the back of a very long queue. Past experience suggests your mental state will deteriorate and you will struggle when a ''normal'' life is finally offered.
Under Abbott, you will be processed and, if your claim is upheld, given a temporary protection visa (TPV) with no family reunion rights. But you will be able to work and you can dream of being joined by your family if they risk their lives, get on boats and are prepared for a long stint on Nauru or Manus Island.
In fact, the experience of the Pacific Solution suggests that TPVs will be a ''pull factor'' that entices families to get on boats to stay together, with the inevitable result of more drownings.
If you cannot find work, you will receive an equivalent of work for the dole, which might offer a degree of satisfaction. Abbott insists you will never be afforded permanent residency or facilitated family reunion, but you should know that Philip Ruddock said the same thing in 2001 [under John Howard]and later relented.
After mulling the pros and cons with your flatmates, chances are you will scratch your head, follow the example of many mainstream Australians, and disengage.
The truth is that the major parties are engaged in a cruelty bidding war that is based on the notion that if you punish one group of people (those who come by boat) you will change the behaviour of another (those yet to flee their homes or still in transit).
Both policies are problematic. Rudd cannot deliver on his vow that no one who arrived after July 19 will end up being settled in Australia and Abbott's cannot remove the access of asylum seekers to the courts.
Both policies are also based on the proposition that, if the punishment is severe enough, you will stop the boats and end the drownings at sea. If this purpose is achieved, the challenge of finding a real, durable, regional solution to the problem of people being forced to flee their homelands will remain unresolved.
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/neither-partys-policy-offers-a-real-solution-20130816-2s28j.html
===
Scott Morrison to seek to reintroduce Temporary Protection Visas for refugees
Updated Sun 22 Jun 2014, 11:01pm AEST
The Federal Government will seek to restore Temporary Protection Visas for refugees after the High Court rejected its current policy of restricting the number of permanent visas available.
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison capped the number of permanent visas at 2,773 per year after the Senate blocked the Government's attempts to re-introduce TPVs.
Mr Morrison says the Government will again seek to re-introduce the Howard-era TPVs because it is what the public wants.
"The High Court decision was not unexpected and the contingencies have been in place to deal with the next phase," he said.
---
Inside Zaatari refugee camp
Foreign Correspondent's Sophie McNeill goes inside Syrian refugee
camp Zaatari, one of the world's largest refugee safe havens.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-10/inside-zaatari-one-of-worlds-largest-refugee-camps/5506792
---
"The easiest way for this to be done is for the Greens and Labor to stop blocking the mandate that this Government received at the last election and to support the Temporary Protection Visas that Australians voted for."
The move will have to pass a new-look Senate, with the balance of power in the Upper House set to change next month.
TPVs allow refugees to stay in Australia for three years before facing a review of their refugee status.
The Greens and refugee advocacy groups argue against TPVs, saying the uncertainty associated with temporary visas can contribute to ongoing mental health problems.
The High Court ruling followed separate applications to the court from two asylum seekers - an Ethiopian boy and a Pakistani man - who were found to be refugees but denied visas because of the cap.
It found the Minister did not have the power to limit the number of visas issued within a specific financial year, and ordered Mr Morrison reconsider the asylum seekers' applications for protection.
Mr Morrison says the Government can do that while maintaining its policy stance, but he is refusing to say how.
"The Australian Government's policy has not changed. No-one who has come illegally to Australia by boat will get a permanent visa from this Government," he said.
Melbourne rally calls for end to offshore processing
Meanwhile, about 1,000 people gathered in Melbourne's CBD on Sunday to protest against Australia's treatment of asylum seekers and to call for an end to offshore processing.
Protesters carried signs with pictures of Leo Semanpillai, a Tamil asylum seeker on a bridging visa, who died of self-inflicted burns earlier this month.
---
Photo: The protest called for mercy for asylum seekers and fair processing of their applications. (ABC News)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-22/women-with-sign-at-melbourne-refugee-rally/5541988
---
The protesters marched through the city centre chanting: "We won't stop until we free refugees."
Refugee advocate and nun Brigid Arthur told the crowd that Australia's policies amounted to torture.
"When a nation determines it is acceptable for children to be incarcerated, then that nation needs to start questioning what it means," she said.
Mr Morrison told Parliament earlier this month that the number of children in detention was fewer than 1,000 and had fallen by a third since the election.
Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt called for faster processing of asylum seeker claims.
"Lets process people's claims efficiently, quickly and fairly," he said.
"Instead of locking people up in island prisons, where it seems that under this Government's watch someone can be beaten to death with impunity, let's welcome people into the community and process them here."
.. note there is a bit on the High Court decision inside bottom ..
First posted Sun 22 Jun 2014, 8:23am AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-22/morrison-to-seek-to-reintroduce-tpvs-for-refugees/5541576
===
What’s a bridging visa?
Amber Jamieson | Oct 14, 2011 1:05PM
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/10/14/crikey-clarifier-whats-a-bridging-visa/
See also:
Zaatari refugee camp here, http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=91504425
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