Julian Burnside
Most Australians have trouble understanding what it means to
put your life in the hands of a people smuggler, or why anyone would do it.
Try to imagine that you are a refugee: you are part of an ethnic minority in
Afghanistan. Your people have been the target of ethnic cleansing for more
than a century, but especially since the Taliban came on he scenea few decades
ago. You have friends and family members who have been killed by Taliban
snipers and suicide bombers. You know children who were blown to bits when the
Taliban used them as mine-sweepers. You know of the teenager who was forced
back to Afghanistan from Nauru in 2002 and who was hunted down by the Taliban:
when they found him in his village, they dragged him out of his house and threw
him down the village well, and dropped a hand grenade in after him.
You have borrowed enough money to get to Australia: it is
cheaper than getting to Europe or America. With your family you make your way
to Indonesia, passing through Muslim countries which do not offer protection because
they have not signed the Refugees’ Convention.
In Indonesia you can go to the UNHCR and get a card which
vouches that you are a refugee, but it doesn’t mean much because the Indonesian
government will jail you if they find you, and you aren’t allowed to work, and
you can’t send your kids to school. You will wait in the shadows until some
country offers to resettle you. It could take 10 or 20 years.
There is one line of escape: you can pay a people smuggler
who will take you to Australia by boat. It is dangerous, but it is a chance
for freedom and safety, for you and for your kids.
Imagine yourself there. What would you do?
What would most Australians do? What would our political
leaders do, if they were in that position? (Try asking them: they won’t tell
you)
I know I would take the risk, and I suspect most Australians
would do the same. You know that if your luck runs out you could die trying to
reach safety. But if the Taliban get you, you are just as dead as if you
drown.
Most Australians don’t have to make these agonising choices
but if we did, we would not be grateful to a government for cutting off our
last line of escape. But that is exactly what Australian politicians want to
do.
The Report of the Expert Panel has recommended a package of ‘incentives
and disincentives’ calculated to stop people from getting on boats. (see my brief
analysis of the report here).
The Government and the Opposition are ostensibly concerned about people risking
their lives at sea.
Let’s be clear: the Government (and the Panel) have two
guiding ideas:
- deter people from risking their lives at sea. This is supposedly motivated by a concern for the safety of boat people;
- make sure boat people do not get faster resettlement than others who wait (in camps or wherever). This whistles up echoes of the ‘queue-jumper’ mantra.
I want to look at the first of these, and consider the ethical
problem of deterrence.
The idea of deterrence is to make getting on a boat less
attractive than the alternatives. Take the example of a Hazara from Afghanistan
(over the past 15 years, most boat people have been Hazaras from Afghanistan).
They get here by being taken through Pakistan then to Malaysia by plane and
from Malaysia to Indonesia by plane. Their travel papers are provided by the
people smuggler, who takes them back again when they reach Indonesia.
If the journey is intercepted in Malaysia or Indonesia, they
face the prospect of staying there for years or (more likely) decades until
some country offers to resettle them. Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia have
not signed the Refugees Convention and will jail them if they are found. They
cannot work and cannot send their kids to school. If they go back to Pakistan or
Afghanistan, they face the real prospect of being killed by the Taliban. Hazaras
have been the target of ethnic cleansing for more than a century, but
especially since the Taliban came on the scene a few decades ago. Most Hazaras
living in Afghanisan or Pakistan have friends and family members who have been
killed by Taliban snipers and suicide bombers. Most Hazaras know children who
were blown to bits when the Taliban used them as mine-sweepers.
So, put broadly, the alternatives are a life of real fear
and persecution in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or a life of fear and hopelessness
in Malaysia or Indonesia. When the alternative is a dangerous boat trip to a
life of safety in Australia, only the timid will be deterred.
Getting on a boat and arriving in Australia to ask for
protection is not an offence. It is not illegal. Boat people have not broken
any law. They are innocent people. What the Expert Panel proposes is similar
to what the Howard government did: treat innocent people in such a way as to
deter others from trying to get here for protection. Specifically, they will be
sent to Nauru (population 8000), or to Manus Island (population 43,000; the
island is mostly covered by tropical jungle). There are two reasons for
choosing these places.
- First, they are outside Australia, and the subtext is that when we send boat people there we will shut the door behind them. So we remove the promise of safety and protection and substitute an uncertain, uncomfortable future of waiting. Substituting despair for hope is a pretty effective deterrent.
- Second, they are out of sight and difficult to get to. Community support, which is so important to detainees in Australia, will disappear. We can expect that, like the Howard government before it, the Gillard government will make sure that refugee supporters will be denied access to detainees in Nauru and Manus Island. This will enhance the sense of despair of people sent there.
The ‘no advantage’ principle embraced by the Panel’s Report
is calculated to ensure that people who come by boat will not be resettled any
quicker than people who come by authorised channels. It works on the proven
theory that years of isolation and uncertainty drive people to despair and
misery: we have seen in Pacific Solution mark I, we have seen it in detention
centres onshore and offshore. Perhaps someone has done some figures to see
just how many years of despair are enough to deter people from having a shot at
freedom and safety. Presumably someone in a dark corner of the Department will
do some figures, because it is fantastically expensive to deter people this
way.
Because Manus and Nauru are remote places, it costs a lot to build the
necessary infrastructure and it costs a lot maintain staff there. Typically,
it costs about 5 times as much per person per day to warehouse people on Nauru
or Manus. So, in order to make Australia look less appealing than the Taliban,
we will spend about $1600 per person per day during the time they are held on
Nauru or Manus. And if the ‘no advantage’ principle is applied, we will hold
people for at least 5 years. That comes to about $3 million for each person
detained. (Those who think boat people are just economic migrants might lobby
government to offer them $1 million per person to go back where they came
from. If it worked, it would be a lot cheaper).
The Government is willing to implement the Panel’s
recommendations; the Coalition is falling over itself with happiness at the
idea of warehousing people in Nauru again – perhaps it is keen to continue its
research into techniques for driving people mad. It will only happen if the
Parliament makes four assumptions:
- first, that the Panel’s recommendations are effective,
- second, that we don’t mind spending huge amounts to warehouse people who came looking for help,
- third, that it makes sense to send refugees to tiny, remote places with very small populations, rather than look after them here in a conspicuously big, sparsely populated continent.
- and finally, that we don’t mind making Australia look hostile enough that people will prefer the Taliban.
Apparently both major parties think that, as a country, we
are comfortable with these assumptions. Speaking for myself, I thought we were
better than that.
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