A Shameful Decision
If the Sri Lankans are determined to be refugees, which looks likely, they will not be offered protection by Australia. Instead, we will hawk them around the world to see if another country will take them. The effrontery of this is awesome.
If the Sri Lankans are determined to be refugees, which looks likely, they will not be offered protection by Australia. Instead, we will hawk them around the world to see if another country will take them. The effrontery of this is awesome.
If history and commonsense are any guide, the world community will tell us to look after them ourselves. The Sri Lankans will languish on Nauru for years while Minister Andrews looks for other solutions to a problem he created for himself, but for which the Sri Lankans will pay with the lost years of their lives.
All of this makes Minister Andrews’ decision to send the Sri Lankans to Nauru look pretty bad. But it gets worse: he made it clear that the reason for sending them to Nauru is to send a deterrent signal to people smugglers. Mistreating innocent people in order to influence the conduct of others is morally beyond redemption.
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There are so many reasons to detest this decision. Principally however, processing offshore can only be motivated by a hope that offshore processing will result in more refusals for refugee status than processing by Australian onshore processes. That can be motivated only by an avoidance of our duty to take our share. We should simply process all claimants quickly and according to law.
Thank you again Julian Burnside. Your continuing articles are much appreciated by many many Australians.
Senior members of this government have no shame, no conscience and do not seem to understand that they act illegally. Roll on election time.
“Mistreating innocent people in order to influence the conduct of others is morally beyond redemption”. Exactly.
But that’s not really why our government is shipping people off to Nauru to rot is it? We are given that reason so that unthinking Australians who want a reason, any reason, can forget about the problem. This bogus reason from the government will satisfy some.
In my opinion, our government is sending these refugees to Nauru because they are not white, and our government would never admit to its unstated racist policy. If this was a boatload of white South Africans, Nauru would never be considered for them. They would be brought to Australia immediately, the government would give humanitarian reasons for it, and we would all accept it.
Our government isn’t locking up these innocent victims to teach people smugglers a lesson, it’s locking them up because they aren’t white.
Even more alarming is that the High Court case of NAGV and NAGW excludes any basis for relying on third countries, but that also will not apply on Nauru.
This disaster has already cost $2.2 billion without including the costs of 25 naval ships and their crews, emergency health care and compensation claims and still Kevin Andrews cannot get things right.
He says it will be done according to UN protocols but I don’t know what he is talking about.
The UN says that all people have the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries, they should never be locked up, never be punished for method of arrival, don’t need travel documents in international law, they don’t need any authority other than the refugees convention and they have to be outside of their own countries and too scared to go home.
Andrews has missed all of those so far so what protocols is he talking about?
Anyone have a clue?
Hi there,
I would like to get in contact with Julian Burnside QC because I believe I can prove that ART is the best way to go about achieving peace. I believe I can provve this without doubt through Dedusive Philosophy.
Can “Australians All” do something to exert pressure on the Australian Government to do something about the Iraqi refugeees now numbering close to two million in Syria?
I know of an Iraqi family now in Damascus who have had to flee for their lives.
There is alot of mud being thrown by Tony Abbott about Rudd abusing his religious convictions/connections to advance the ALP’s social justice cause. Whenever he makes these highly charged comments, it gets a run in the press.
However, very little media attention has been given to the conflict between Catholic Social Teachings and the Government’s position on human rights, refugees, climate change and war. Andrews and Abbott never have to explain why/how they champion these policies when they are so obviously at odds with the church’s guide on ethical behaviour.
Thanks Julian for raising the issue of Christian teachings and refugees. You also managed to get a run in Cath News! http://www.cathnews.com/news/703/116.php
Tanja Kovac
Many thanks again to Julian burnside for speaking so plainly about the reality of Sri Lankan refugees or asylum seekers. The Government is acting in a harsh and inhumane way, as it has in relation to David Hicks. As people come to understand the reality of government actions, more and more are coming to have a different view. The idea of the Good Samaritan is very much an Australian value, it is not a Government value.
Its wrong. Its inhuman.. the list of negative adjectives is insufficient to describe the present governments treatment of people fleeing war and persecution. No doubt Andrews is a mere puppet to those hard hearted men who only manage to cling to high office on the back of the current mining boom..