I simply can’t understand the strategic or even tactical thinking (if any) behind the Gillard government’s decision to pursue a legislative revival of the Malaysia Solution. Neither the Coalition nor the Greens were ever going to support it, nor were many voters going to spend enough time actually thinking about the issue to realise that Tony Abbott’s position is not only cynically destructive but logically absurd and unworkable. Of course the same is true of his climate change “policy” but no-one seems worried about that either.
What Gillard should have done was reluctantly accept from the outset that the High Court’s decision had effectively doomed the Malaysia Solution at least in the immediate future. Given that this is what all the experts were saying anyway, persuading people on that proposition shouldn’t have been a big ask. Then she and Bowen could have (and still should) set about constructing a workable policy framework around onshore processing, perhaps also taking advantage of Abbott’s willingness to wave through a revival of Nauru/Manus Island offshore processing merely to be able to say “nah nah nah , told you so”. Anyway, here’s my rough stab at a post-Malaysia Solution asylum seeker policy:
First, we should not only release families and unaccompanied minors into community-based hostel accommodation during processing and assessment as soon as they pass health security and identity clearance processes ((This already supposedly occurs, and was even Howard government policy towards the end of its term of government, but the clearance and release processes were overwhelmed for some time by the sudden large increase in arrival numbers after Rudd removed other elements of Howard’s policies ~KP)), we should do the same with single adults. Of course, they pose a much greater absconding risk than families and kids, but attachment of irremovable tracking devices should reduce the risk to acceptable levels. DIAC Secretary Andrew Metcalfe has suggested that embracing onshore processing would likely increase the annual flow of boat arrivals to 7000 or so and community-based processing may increase it a bit more, but there’s no reason why those numbers aren’t readily manageable, especially given that around 50% of them will be found not to be refugees and eventually deported. Moreover, as long as Australia maintains its longstanding policy of subtracting successful onshore asylum claimants from the offshore humanitarian quota (currently around 14,000), those number wouldn’t have any effect at all on the numbers or pace of acceptance of refugees into the Australian community.
Metcalfe’s egregious claim that those sorts of numbers would somehow result in massive civil strife and social tensions should not be taken seriously. Gillard urged Abbott and others to accept Metcalfe’s claims as expert and authoritative, but what special expertise does an immigration bureaucrat possess in assessing such questions? I can’t help thinking that Metcalfe’s claim is little more than a reflection of the longstanding kneejerk paranoid, punitive institutional culture of Australia’s immigration bureaucracy. All applicants are prima facie viewed as fraudulent and dishonest until proven innocent. The silliest but by no means only example of this mindset that I experienced in my years of legal practice was in acting for the Catholic Church when we had to make representations to the Department in relation to the visa application of a 50 year old Mother Superior of Mother Teresa’s order of nuns from the Philippines who was coming to Darwin to take over the convent here. The Department refused to believe that she wasn’t a fraudulent “mail order” bride. The tenor of correspondence suggested that they had an automatic “flag” in their process manuals to the effect that unaccompanied female visa applicants from the Philippines should prima facie be regarded as either prostitutes or spurious spouses. Any accompanying warnings that the policy should be applied with a modicum of intelligence were ignored. From memory, the impasse was eventually cleared by obtaining a stat dec from Mother Teresa herself, even though she was very old and sick at the time, attesting to her Mother Superior’s bona fides.
Nevertheless, under any new onshore processing policy there will still be a core of potentially troublesome applicants who will need to be kept in immigration detention, either because their identities can’t be readily verified or security clearance obtained, or because they’ve been found not to be genuine refugees at all but are exhausting every last judicial review avenue in the hope of somehow avoiding deportation. Generally speaking, these are the types of applicant who have been rioting and burning down detention facilities on Christmas Island and elsewhere. It’s for dealing with the problem these people pose that Gillard might have been better advised to embrace Tony Abbott’s amendments authorising offshore processing in Nauru or PNG, and simply cop Abbott’s short-term sneering. Just as accommodating most applicants in community-based hostels in Australia would remove any clear focus for public perceptions of a boat people “problem”, so too parking the security risks and failed applicants in offshore detention would largely deny them the oxygen of publicity for their attention-seeking riots. That would help to reduce the continual adverse publicity that gives people the erroneous impression that Australia’s border protection policy is somehow in crisis, when in fact our system is quite well managed and much less problematic overall than just about any other advanced western country.
Despite moving to non-detention-based onshore processing, Australia should continue to develop a genuine regional approach to asylum seeker policy. We should increase our annual humanitarian quota to around 18,000 and focus it overwhelmingly on applicants waiting in Malaysia and Indonesia for resettlement. If we granted (say) 3000 humanitarian visas in both Malaysia and Indonesia each year and also persuaded New Zealand to do some burden -sharing (e.g. 1000 per year from each of those countries), we would make a substantial hole over time in the real and serious problems Malaysia and Indonesia both have in coping with large numbers of asylum seekers within their borders. We should combine that with a significant increase in foreign aid for provision of basic health care and education facilities for asylum seekers waiting in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Importantly, these measures would entail a significant quid pro quo from Malaysia and Indonesia. Our increased aid and humanitarian intake from those countries would be contingent on their making genuine and stringent efforts to apprehend and smash the people smuggler rings and destroy their businesses and boats before they leave. That would involve not only enacting laws imposing severe penalties (which don’t currently exist to the best of my knowledge) but using expert national criminal intelligence agencies to enforce those laws rather than notoriously corrupt/inept and under-resourced local police.
Australia should also continually publicise to asylum seekers waiting in Malaysia and Indonesia the fact that our offshore humanitarian quota is reduced for every irregular boat arrival. Moreover, we should make it clear that the number of offshore humanitarian visas will be increased still further to the extent that irregular onshore boat arrivals remain below about 8-10,000 per year. In other words, we would be creating a real and orderly queue in these countries, with many of the queuers no doubt vigilantly watching out for queue-jumpers and hopefully dobbing them in.
“I simply can’t understand the strategic or even tactical thinking (if any) behind the Gillard government’s decision to pursue a legislative revival of the Malaysia Solution.”
Isn’t it just ideology? Isn’t this business driven by mindless globalism?
Kelly and Shanahan, of the horrid Australian newspaper, were gunning for the Malaysian non-solution. What do the Murdoch papers and the government have in common? Globalism. They are all quislings. So there is a certain logic in these attempts to treat Australian immigration policy, and refugees, as if they were hostages to some hidden agenda.
The thing with this prime minister is that policy is not about doing anything, it is about keeping up appearances. It seems to me the possible explanations,in no particular order, are:
A good rough stab Ken. I especially like the concept in the last paragraph.
One thing that no-one has properly explained is – how does community based processing work? In whose community are they processed? Do the asylum seekers get to choose where they will go? Are they housed in hostels as you suggest, or in underutilised housing in country towns?
Are we talking about creating a single location where they can be efficiently managed (a ghetto?), are they placed within communities of their own culture (risk of absconding?), are are they deliberately dispersed across the country (less efficient, but dilutes any undesirable group activity).
Hi Rex
I think (but haven’t checked in any detail) at the moment they’re putting families into public housing, and boarding unaccompanied minors with (in effect) foster families. I’m suggesting hostel-type accommodation for the single adults simply because it would probably be the most cost-effective option and also make it easier to keep tabs on them to minimise the absconding risk. I imagine this accommodation would be spread around different centres rather than all in one place. There would be several benefits from this, not least to reduce community fear of the unknown. Interacting with actual asylum seekers in one’s local community may reduce the extent to which they’re demonised as two-headed monsters likely to strap on a suicide bomb under the burkha or stone to death your bikini-wearing teenage daughter if given half a chance.
Can I suggest some modification of those numbers.
Australia is 5x the population of NZ, is 40% wealthier (per capita GDP) and has considerably more skin in the game.
Under those circumstances your 6000/yr equates to roughly 900/yr for NZ, not taking into account the “skin in game/care factor”. I’d be surprised, therefore, if NZ were expected to take more than 500/year.
Come on this is getting ridiculous. How much oxygen does this topic starve. There is no improvement possible until we withdraw from the Refugee Convention. We just need some of those media and education gatekeepers to step up and give voice to the inevitable. Once the taboo is lifted, and folks learn about the democracy-subverting conspiracy between the HC that are these UN Conventions, it on’t take long for the politicians to man up.
You’re right Ken. Only you care enough about this issue to spend all that time thinking through it to eventually end up at the surprise conclusion that Tony Abbott is bad ™.
What Gillard should have done is call an election, rather than prolong the agony of having this country governed by imbeciles.
The mother superior story is hilarious Ken.
You are right that Abbott is hypocritical in suddenly embracing the need for a UN convention signature. Labor is just as hypocritical though, since until recently this was a pre-requisite for off-shore processing and their main argument against Nauru.
I find it distressing that the media let politicians get away with this. I would like to live in an alternate universe where journos would hound Abbott and Gillard on these points, relentlessly to the exclusion of any other issue. In this universe, they can just stone-wall and obfuscate until the journos get tired of it.
Hi Chris
Yes I agree Labor is equally hypocritical, and have said so numerous times in the many posts I’ve written on this topic over the years. Of course you wouldn’t expect Yobbo to bother about that inconvenient fact when it better suits his argument to falsely paint me as a one-eyed ALP supporter. Debating in good faith has never been Sam’s strong point, cheap shots are so much more fun.
I’m not saying you’re a one-eyed ALP supporter Ken.
I’m saying that your desire for people to see you as “centrist” means that you can’t bring yourself to criticise the ALP about anything without simultaneously having a go at Abbott for no reason.
The Liberal party had this policy right 10 years ago. Labor knows that. They can’t admit it without looking like fools. None of this is Tony Abbott’s fault.
You can still be a centrist but admit that this is the worst government in Australia’s history, and it needs to go.
Defending the indefensible is the job of Larvatus Prodeo, you don’t need to lower yourself to that level.
Personally I think you know deep inside how much better the country would be if Gillard just called an election and lost miserably, but you enjoy the left-wing readers you have, and that your digs at Abbott are just a cynical attempt to keep them coming back here.
Yobbo
I actually think the current Labor government is doing a pretty good job in most areas except PR/persuasion (which is of course fatal). Moreover, as I’ve argued previously, I think the Malaysia Solution would actually have worked in terms of stemming the flow of boats (although, as I discussed at the time, the human rights issues were always a concern).
“The Liberal party had this policy right 10 years ago.”
That may well be right, but that was 10 years ago. As I’ve also argued previously, Howard managed to scare off prospective boat people for several years with a combination of smoke and mirrors and the washup from SIEV X. But it was never going to last indefinitely. Once the smugglers and their customers discovered that jumping on a boat to Australia remained the best option for an assured and accelerated protection visa, albeit after being garaged on Nauru for 2-3 years (as opposed to a decade or more of complete uncertainty otherwise), the Pacific Solution was always doomed to become progressively less and less effective over time, even if temporary protection visas etc had not been removed under Rudd.
There’s nothing even slightly surprising about that. Like any form of policing, you have to be flexible and change tactics over time. The criminals are not stupid and will always eventually learn to counter the latest law enforcement tactics. Hawke/Keating introduced mandatory detention and other measures in the early 90s and that worked for a while, so did the Pacific Solution for a while after 2001. But it simply wouldn’t work now, as I’ve been arguing for ages and as DIAC is advising both the government and Abbott. Moreover, because Abbott is no fool, I’m sure he knows very well that the Department’s advice is correct. It just doesn’t suit his immediate political purposes to acknowledge it. I’ll wager he finds a way to adopt the Malaysia Solution within months of winning government, if he’s able to get it through the Senate.
It is pure myth that the convention is a product of countries that disregard democracy or the rule of law.
The Refugee Convention was drawn up by a conference of 24 nations in 1951:
Except for Columbia, Egypt, the Holy See, Iraq, Venezuela and Yugoslavia all were democracies, and the vast majority are now NATO members. All but Yugoslavia had pro-Western governments in 1951. The NGOs in attendance included such dangerous leftist groups as the World Jewish Congress, the International Union of Catholic Women’s Leagues, and the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.
Those advocating withdrawal from the convention should support the Gillard legislation. Gillard does not formally abrogate the convention, she merely legislates that we can act as if we had no obligations under the convention.
Ken,
I am led to believe the legislation applies to any offshore processing centre.
It could be Malaysia, it could be Nauru, it could be the North Pole.
Mind you I have never sen the problem of onshore processing.
“I am led to believe the legislation applies to any offshore processing centre.”
Yes, that’s right Homer but Abbott won’t cop it in that form. He is, however proposing amendments that would confine the operation of the Gillard amendments to Convention signatories i.e. Nauru and PNG but not Malaysia or Indonesia. I’m suggesting that Gillard should accept the Abbott amendments solely to allow the troublemakers (identity and security problems and failed applicants) to be detained offshore, not as a general offshore processing option.
“Those advocating withdrawal from the convention should support the Gillard legislation.”
You’ve got to be tripping? Where is the logic in that? Of course we want to withdraw from the convention, so that we are unconstrained in finding a creative solution, beneficial to all parties. Where does this idiocy to do with Malaysia fit into that?
So Abbott does not want legislation that could lead to Nauru opening up again.
how come I am not surprised at that.
Gee he has buckleys of getting it up if there is a change of government then.
Alan,
are you the Alan I think you are? If so, you have been right so far about the asylum issue. You are probably right again about its current rationale.
Ken,
whilst I sympathise with your wish to have outside agencies check on them, I cannot see the Malaysians or other governments accepting something as humiliating as overseas inspectors. I cant even see our diplomats dare suggest it to their counterparts. National pride is in the way: corrupt or not, you have to deal with overseas governments on the basis of pretending to believe in their competence.
Paul
I’m not suggesting foreign or Australian coppers should or could become involved in law enforcement in Malaysia or Indonesia. I’m suggesting we require that the Malaysians and Indons start taking deterrence of people smugglers seriously as a condition of enhanced aid and taking more of their asylum seekers. They should enact their own laws imposing heavy financial penalties, vessel confiscation and destruction, and long terms of imprisonment. AND they should task and resource their own senior national criminal intelligence agency (not just their local village cops) with detecting and arresting the people smugglers. That doesn’t happen now AFAIK. I completely agree that they would never allow foreign coppers to do such jobs nor should they. I guess I need to be more careful in spelling out exactly what I mean. You obviously took my reference to “local” as meaning I didn’t want Indon/Malaysian cops dealing with the problem, whereas by “local” I only meant that the village constable didn’t have the skills, resources or in some cases the integrity to deal with these problems. It needs the Indon/Malaysian equivalent of a dedicated specialist AFP taskforce.
Ken
We could have some confidence in that scheme working in Indonesia where POLRI is making large progress with human rights and effective policing and has an excellent relationship with the AFP. Malaysia, sadly, is moving in the opposite direction.
Both corruption and human rights abuses are increasing. Indeed the Najib government has been using the Malaysia scheme to dismiss criticism by Malaysian opposition groups, arguing that their human rights record must be good because Australia wants this arrangement. Najib is actually mildly reformist, if deeply incapable, and for that reason may be about to lose office. Najib’s likely successor would move the country much further along the path of repression.
Aside from the refugee issue, I do not really know that Australia should be giving aid and comfort to UMNO in the domestic affairs of Malaysia.
Alan
Gillard’s legislation has nothing to do with the Convention. It contradicted legislation passed by the Australian Parliament in 2001. A Parliament of which she herself was a member!
Also, it is now 2011, SIXTY years beyond 1951. How many Acts of the Australian Parliament remain as they were sixty years ago? You may well wish to live in the good old days of 1951. I doubt many others do.
Peter
Read the High Court’s judgment and the current ext of Gillard’s bill. In Australia a convention is law only to the extent that it is incorporated into our law by the parliament. The migration act reflects the provisions of the convention as discussed amply by ken parish in the last iteration of this thread. The provisions this bill is designed to nugate are based on our obligations under the convention.
Gillard’s bill would change the act so that the executive can do what it likes without reference to the parliament or the courts. Not only does it exempt offshore country declarations from the limits set down in Section 198A of the Act, it provides that violating the rules of natural justice (rules developed exclusively by our courts) and even the bill’s own notification to parliament provisions have no effect on the validity of the declaration.
Gillard could have presented a more moderate bill in 2 ways – limiting declarations to Convention countries or making declarations into disallowable instruments. She could not do the first because Malaysia is not a Convention country and the second because both houses have already opposed the Malaysia non-soklution.
Thank you for noting we are finally making progress in the understanding of the Refugee Convention. Until recently the advocates of withdrawal were denouncing the convention as the product of a gaggle of gangsters. I agree with you that the convention requires updating. I am not sure how you propose Australia can contribute to updating the convention after withdrawing, but no doubt you will be instructing us all in due course.
For the record the convention is not exactly as it was in 1951. It was amended in 1967.
The plain facts were that the previous Govt had done the hard yards with the lip sewers, detention centre burners and finally the Tampa takeover mob to stop the boats and finally empty the detention centres. The children overboard hysterics apparently knew better and opened up the people trade again until they were morally bankrupted by their ugly children on the rocks tradeoff. They and their Labor/Green flunkies have been trying to avoid that obvious guilt ever since, and hence anything but Nauru and their Malaysian clutching at straws.
Against that background Ken lets fly with-
Well let’s deal with the GW distraction first because it does have some weight for politics in a democracy whereby politicians have to be mindful of a range of views out in the electorate. Essentially Abbott knows the punters want a few windmills and solar panels to feel good about the crumbling science of CAGW, so flinging a bone in that direction makes sense to address the main game of preventing a horrid thin air derivatives trading scheme. Besides, everyone knows that with a big fat deficit the windmill and solar panel handouts will naturally have to be sacrificed for that at a later date and as the ROW backs away from the IPCC nonsense.
While that is sound and sensible strategy until more people wake up to the hyping of CO2, legislative opposition to Gillard’s Malaysian attempt at face saving is not. Much better for Abbott to allow Gillard to do her worst, stating although he doesn’t believe in the Malaysian deal and the Opposition will argue long and loud against it in the Parliament, they will not stand in the Govt’s way on this, just as they’d expect the same when in Govt themselves. Simply put up the Opposition amendments and solutions but abstain from voting Gillard’s legislation down in both Houses. Let Labor own it fully against the Greens and Independents and any Labor member that want’s to make a statement by opposing it too in Parliament. There’s no way the Coalition want to vote with the Greens on it and muddy the waters as Gillard is desperate to do. Let her own it fully because the Indos were well on the way to busting that 800 critical threshold already. I’d certainly be critical of Abbott’s tactical and long term strategic planning on that score.
Or the shorter observa- Give them all plenty of your strong thick rope to hang themselves.
Sounds like there’s an opening to incentivate Malaysia into signing the refugee convention. Surely it’s in Australia’s interests to encourage them to move away from corrupt Islamic fundamentalism, and towards corrupt Western decadence and welfare statism. There’s a host of goodies we have to offer — subsidised Internet, a new school canteen, pink batts in their ceiling. They’d jump at the chance.
If that doesn’t work, find a local union willing to err… issue some credit cards, wink wink.
I am not sure how helping entrench in power the same people responsible for human rights abuses and corrupt practices is going to reduce human rights abuses and corrupt practices. Neither is the Malaysian opposition. Perhaps its time to try and revive the discredited Asian values thesis?
Well, you know how the saying goes: people who live without sin in glass houses should avoid getting stoned. Or thereabouts.
Things of value get bought and sold precisely because they have value. Corruption is merely the free market asserting itself by stealth where it cannot assert itself in the open air. Working on an honest basis is more efficient for everyone, but deception and cunning are art forms in their own right.
If you value human rights, get ready to pay for what you value (one way or another, doesn’t necessarily have to be with money, any deal will do). You yourself said, Najib is reformist, and he is currently in a weak position because his reforms have angered the hard liners. Sounds like excellent deal-making territory to me.
Sinless individuals over the age of innocence are statistically rare. If sinlessness is to be a precondition of political action then all politics everywhere must cease immediately. Personally I rather enjoy sin and I would be reluctant to give it up.