41 / What about this stuff with illegal immigrants?
Today a friend asked, "so what do you think about this stuff with illegal immigrants?" A loaded question, what with our government passing the buck to Indonesia, "you deal with it!" Presumably it's much easier for Indonesia to get a handle on the issue, after all they are Asian, the 'illegal' immigrants are Asian, and we are superior, descendants from Europeans - everybody knows that puts us in a class of our own.
It always was like that. When Whities came to Australia first, they looked at the Blackfellas and said, "you're not real people, we declare this continent to be un-occupied - with no population, only animals inhabiting it, terra nullius, land not belonging to anyone - and we claim it for ourselves … that's only fair!" … or something like that. And nothing much has changed to this day.
We live on a continent that we have to ourselves (never mind the 1/2m or so Aborigines), and we decide that 22m people is enough. Tough luck if you live in a country with 1b people, tough luck if your place is ravaged by religious intolerance, fundamentalism, suicide bombings, war and what not. That's your problem. Get out of our face.
And don't forget: "We decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
Frankly, it shames me to think that I live in a country where the predominant notions as regards those less fortunate (Afghans, Tamils, Iraqis, Africans) are ignorance, indolence and self-centredness (I sometimes wonder if I've jumped from the fry-pan into the fire - the fry-pan being post-war Nazi-riddled Germany. Now I call a place home where the indigenous people are considered inferior, and - let's face it - it is surreptitiously hoped by many that they will die out in the fullness of time - that'll be genocide, folks, nothing less - and that they can be ignored until then.) Where is our compassion? What happened to the notion that all of humanity is one? That all humans are equal?
Back to the original question. To begin with, the boat people are not 'illegal immigrants.' They are asylum seekers - and it is perfectly legal to seek asylum. But there are two issues here. The first is, we have to deal with the deeper problem, namely that there are minorities that are persecuted and prosecuted in their own countries, that there is poverty, corruption, injustice, terrorism and war. These are issues for not only us but also the world community and the United Nations. Poverty and corruption need to be addressed as a matter of urgency, the obscene spending on military, on wars, needs to be re-channelled, ignorance needs to be alleviated by education. O.k. this will not happen overnight - but these considerations must become a priority when solutions to the refugee issue are sought … whereas currently the only consideration seems to be: 'We don't want these people here - and they are not our problem anyway.'
Secondly, we have to look at ourselves. Australia is a country built on immigration. We love our multiculturalism, our Italian, Greek, Chinese, Thai, Indian restaurants (especially Indian, yum, yum). There always were decades where Australia absorbed an influx of people who, for whatever reason - was it war or economic hardship - arrived at our shores. Australia used to welcome and successfully absorbe these newcomers. In fact, it is safe to say they were to the country's advantage. They were hardworking and eager. They are the salt of the earth, to use a cliché. What happened?
Our continent is vast. Some people have decided it is full. Australia cannot provide for more people, they say. They will take our jobs. They will eat our food, drink our water and seduce our children. They will 'change the fabric of our society.' I say, good on them. I say, we need them, we want them. We have room for them. We will generate the jobs for them (in fact they will do that themselves), we will use them and their willingness to work hard to make our country bigger, better, more colourful, more innovative, more competitive and future proof.
These two issues need to be balanced - but currently there is little balance. Hundreds of millions are spent containing 'illegal asylum seekers' on islands and in camps. Couldn't that money be used more constructively? I think it should be used to help them - preferably in their own country - rather than to repel or contain them.
So there you have it. Humbug, this xenophobia. They need help - we must help them. If they can't be helped in their own country, if they truly feel - and justifiably feel - that they have no future in their country, then let them come. Welcome them. Australia will be a better place for them. Now … shall we talk some more about that compassion? Post a comment.
Are you interested in this subject matter? Here's an update - SMH 2009 October 23 - by barrister and columnist Richard Ackland:
Australians all let us react, says the right
''For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.''
Oh dear. Now the ''boundless plains to share'' have shrivelled to a craggy Indian Ocean rock amid some of the ugliest fear-mongering about refugees it's been our misfortune to endure.
One political charmer from the Northern Territory's Country Liberal Party last week described asylum seekers as scum. Wilson Tuckey has warned us that terrorists could be infiltrating crowds of refugees seeking entry to the country.
Philip Ruddock, the former immigration minister, appeared in our lounge rooms, wreathed in smirks (if that's what those facial grimaces are) about the awkward spot the Rudd Government finds itself in.
The ''Indonesian solution'' is little different to his ''Pacific solution'', he asserts. Amid all the grandstanding no one has tried to offer an ''Australian solution''.
The Opposition's tawdry line is that an increase in asylum seekers is directly attributable to the dismantling of a few elements of the former government's ''solution''. This is despite being glared in the face by the present dire circumstances that persist in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
What sort of country do our politicians want us to be? The one being played on like a badly strung harp is that of a nervous, small, anxious, afraid nation, where an appeal to inhumanity wins the day.
Apparently this is ''popular'', as though that legitimised the nastiness of this phoney moral panic.
Very few Australians of my acquaintance do not see us as a compassionate country. This stems from the fact that, apart from the original inhabitants, just about all our forebears came here to escape a less attractive life for the hope of a better one.
Now we are faced with desperate people, and clinging children, asking for a better life. What we dish up is unadulterated nastiness.
Accusations that, in one instance, they may have drilled holes in their rickety tub only serves to strengthen the desperation of their circumstances.
What is unpalatable is our political leadership so ruthlessly setting out to twist and pervert the underlying decency of Australians.
Heather Ridout, the chief executive of the Australian Industry Association, has been the only business leader I have seen who has had the courage to speak out against this political grubbiness. She was quoted in the Herald as saying: ''The whole community is completely confused; they want to be compassionate.''
The former prime minister Malcolm Fraser showed you can appeal to a people's nobler instincts. From 1975 to 1982 more than 2000 Vietnamese boat people were accepted into Australia. They arrived without documents or official permission. It's interesting what Petro Georgiou said at the time as Fraser's immigration adviser: ''It was under Fraser's management that Australia first confronted the real consequences of abolishing the White Australia policy.''
Georgiou is today being howled down by Liberals in the party room when he protests against the rhetoric of Malcolm Turnbull and immigration spokeswoman Sharman Stone.
It's worth remembering that under Ruddock as immigration minister, the number of those living illegally in Australia steadily rose. When he first became the minister in 1996 there were 45,000 people unlawfully living here. About the time he was leaving the portfolio, the numbers had climbed to 60,000, according to the department's 2004 annual report.
Overwhelmingly, these people had arrived by aircraft. It's those who arrive in boats who inexplicably bring out the worst in us.
It's not as though we're swamped by refugees. According to analysis by the excellent website Stubborn Mule, a fair number of asylum seekers could be calculated on the basis of our population as a relative proportion of the combined populations of the countries that regularly take refugees.
On that basis our fair share would be 197 asylum seekers per million of population - or more than 4000 for this year to August, rather than the 3600 we have actually received in that period. That is part of 13,750 refugee and humanitarian places that Australia has made available this year, or 0.1 per cent of the world's refugees. Those ''boundless plains'' are just crying out to be shared.