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Justice, Security, a Fair Go

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Let Tampa Day Remind Us

Malcolm Fraser
Tampa and children overboard were the pointers that made us realise those in power cared little for the basic rights of those seeking help – or for our international obligations.

On 26 August 2001 the Norwegian vessel MV Tampa picked up 433 asylum-seekers from a boat sinking in international waters between Australia and Indonesia.

On the sixth anniversary of the day that Norwegian ship made its rescue, it is important that Australians remember the turn taken when the government put heavily armed, special forces troops onto the Tampa. Since then, we have seen a steady and significant erosion of basic rights in Australia.

Tampa and children overboard were the pointers that made us realise those in power cared little for the basic rights of those seeking help – or for our international obligations. Since then, there has been a long series of unhappy events involving the excision of territory from Australia to make asylum harder to obtain along with incident after incident of abuse of asylum seekers and refugees.

We have seen regimes in migration detention centres and in offshore island jails toughened and made more inhumane.

We have seen the careless manner in which David Hicks was robbed of his rights, abused in Guantanamo Bay and forced to go through a show tribunal that would have done justice to any dictatorship.

We have seen the abuse of due process and procedure in relation to Mohamed Haneef. We have seen the claim that the police and authorities abused their power, followed by a statement that the authorities would be given even more power to handle such cases.

We have since seen, on another level, a major attack on the constitutional structures of Australia. The Commonwealth now asserts for itself the right to do anything which, in its judgment it wants to do. In other words, we have seen in a short space of weeks a situation in which the Commonwealth has asserted total power.

We have seen arbitrary intervention in Aboriginal affairs in the Northern Territory, in an apparent plan without a plan, where adequate health care, education and housing for Aboriginal people have not yet taken centre stage.

If these schemes are endorsed in any way by the people of Australia, we should realise that that endorsement will tear up the separation of powers between Commonwealth and States. This will place all power in Canberra. We should really hesitate in taking such a step. The founders of the Constitution, wisely and deliberately and in line also with experience in the United States, had determined that there should be a separation of powers within the Commonwealth of Australia. They did not want any one person or group to have total power. You might like what one person says he will do with total power but what of the next and of the next and of the next? In this instance the institutions which maintain the separation of power are vital to a vigorous democracy. An Australia in which nobody could challenge Canberra’s authority would be a dangerous Australia. The history of countries where such power has resided in a central location should concern us, even frighten us.

In more normal times, many of these issues would have led to major debate between government and opposition. That such issues can slip by without such debate, without an opposition testing the government at every point, should perhaps concern us as much as the actions of the government itself.

About Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser

Malcolm Fraser was Prime Minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983. He had previously served in various junior and senior Ministerial portfolios after entering the Federal Parliament in 1955.

As Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser welcomed refugees from Vietnam and elsewhere, led international condemnation of the apartheid regime in South Africa, moved to recognize aboriginal land rights, championed the cause of multi-culturalism (including the establishment of SBS Broadcasting) and developed significant strategic relationships with Asian and sub-continent nations.

He remains a prominent member of the InterAction Council. He was Chairman of CARE Australia from 1987 to 2001, President of CARE International from 1990 to 1995. In 2000 Malcolm Fraser was awarded the Australian Human Rights Medal.

He is a prolific writer, columnist and speaker on human rights issues.

Other articles by Malcolm Fraser