Australians All

We’re all responsible for this Government’s inhumanity

Malcolm Fraser

First published in The Age, 20 June 2006

The Tampa, red-necked election saw the return of the government and the deepening of racist and discriminatory policy.

If any political party had played politics with migration or refugees in the late 40s or 50s, the great migration which saw both refugees and economic migrants coming to Australia in their tens of thousands, could not have occurred.

I was speaking with some refugees from Vietnam not so long ago. They were conscious that, in today’s Australia with current Government policy, they would not have been allowed to come to Australia.

How has such a fundamental change occurred and why?

It began of course with the government fighting for survival, prepared to play a race card. Boat people were demonised, labelled potential drug runners, prostitutes, queue jumpers, evil people, people who would throw their children overboard whom our leadership did not want to have in Australia.

The Tampa, red-necked election saw the return of the government and the deepening of racist and discriminatory policy.

Have we forgotten that we live in one world? Those who pollute the environment affect the entire world, not just their own countries. In economic matters our leaders speak globalisation. But when it comes to people, we divide ourselves into islands, into separate groups, into races, into religions.

When boat people were coming to Australia, 80%- 85% were found to be genuine refugees. But it is boat people who have been used to stir the fires of racism and discrimination. The authorities claim the tough policy has dried up the flow of boat people. That is not correct. Different circumstances in source countries are largely responsible for the change. The flow to Europe has dried up in a similar fashion but Europe has not followed Australia’s inhumane lead.

A number of other individuals, including Australian citizens, have been treated inhumanely by the Department. For example, Vivian Alvarez Solon was illegally deported. In spite of knowledge of that, it was years before an effort was made to bring her back to Australia. Other Australians have been illegally held in Dept of Immigration centres, in one serious case, without adequate medical attention. Nobody has been held responsible.

David Hicks must be added to this list. He has been judged and condemned without a trial. Because of that judgement he has been denied even the most basic support that Australia should accord all its citizens. Innocent or guilty, David Hicks is entitled to a fair trial.

If current attempts to change policy are successful, we must add West Papuans and all future boat people to those denied proper access to the law. Does the Government believe it can do this again because such people are different, because Australians won’t care?

When a country starts to discriminate against one group of people, almost inevitably that discrimination spreads. This is exactly what has happened in Australia. The list of those who do not benefit from the Rule of Law grows.

Under the proposed changes, men, women and children will again be placed in Dept of Immigration detention centres, but in some other country, not in Australia. These centres have all the attributes of jails and that is what we ought to call them.

Under our own law, under international law, under United Nations conventions, which Menzies first accepted for Australia in 1954, people should not be put in jail or detained without being brought before a court and charged. But boat people, in the view of the Government, do not deserve the basic rights that Australia has accepted as belonging to all people.

There is a Convention on the Status of Children which underlines that children should not be detained but the authorities don’t worry about that. In contrast, overwhelmingly Australians are horrified at the thought of placing children in jail.

A year ago or a little more, there was a significant campaign to get those children out of jails. Australians were given a commitment that children would not again be placed in jails. Now we find under the change of policy, children will again be placed in Dept of Immigration jails. But in some offshore place where they will be out of sight and, hopefully for the authorities, out of mind.

The Government’s original awarding Temporary Protection Visas to 42 people from West Papua, was the correct decision but the repercussions from that have been disastrous.

Sending all future boat people offshore represents a massive extension of previous policies, it is cruel and inhumane. It reverses a promise made about children, a promise which the Australian public accepted but we now know that promises concerning human rights are not necessarily worth very much.

Compassion is in many ways a great Australian characteristic, as we have shown in response to many emergencies, but it is not an attribute of this Government. Its fundamental betrayal of Australian principles seeming to appease a foreign power represents an extraordinary abdication of responsibility. If we are to believe what we are told, that foreign power is not satisfied with the decisions made but wants the withdrawal of the Temporary Protection Visas that have been granted to the 42 West Papuans.

Certainly there is a problem with Indonesia but acceding to Indonesian demands in this way is not an appropriate response. If Indonesia, in genuine good faith, wished to contribute to a solution and to reasonable government in West Papua, they should accept a proposal to establish United Nations monitors who could report publicly on breaches of the peace by West Papuans or unreasonable activity by Indonesian authorities. Indonesia would have nothing to fear from such a proposal if their assurances of reasonable behaviour are justified.

This proposal is not all that unusual. International observers have been placed in other places, in Yugoslavia before its break-up, to monitor the peace and to report violations of that peace by any party.

Where does this leave us? Some Members of Parliament are negotiating with the Government to change the proposals. That is good but we know the attitude and the intentions of the Government and so do people who have any knowledge of Australia, right around the world.

In many countries, people are polite. They are not really going to say what they think of these policies to Ministers or Prime Minister, but they will speak to friends they know. Many are appalled at the change that has taken place in Australia. Our reputation has suffered massively.

How is it that Australians have not risen in rage against these policies which are being implemented in our name? While we allow them to continue, we are all responsible. When will we demand a return to decent, humane behaviour?