Berati’s death must not be used to put others at risk

KILLERS must face justice but offshore processing saves lives.

THE Greens must reconsider whether Sarah Hanson-Young has the capacity and moral compass to handle the vital immigration portfolio. The senator has seemingly not been distracted by at least 1200 asylum-seeker deaths since the Rudd Labor government, with urging from the Greens, dismantled tough border protection measures in 2008. Yet now she seeks to manipulate the tragic death of Reza Berati on Manus Island in order to undermine offshore processing and, presumably, ensure the revival of the nefarious and deadly people-smuggling trade. Such political posturing over policy directly shaping life-and-death issues is reprehensible. By releasing the independent report into Berati’s death this week the government has finally shed more light on this disgraceful incident. Clearly, lessons must be learned by Australian and Papua New Guinean authorities about centre management. Detainees, too, should consider the repercussions of their rioting and racist baiting of centre and security staff. Primary responsibility, however, rests with the employees who struck Berati with brutal and fatal force. We hope soon to see charges laid and justice served, in what can only be a small consolation to the Berati family.

Still, Berati’s backstory tends to show how Australia’s generosity has been abused. Here was a man who graduated in architecture in his native Iran and decided to seek a new life on our shores not because he was fleeing persecution but because he sought a better future. We can all understand and sympathise with this motive but by arriving in a boat and claiming refugee status such migrants are seeking to game our immigration system. Yet it is worth restating no one remotely deserves what befell Berati, and the government must work with PNG and Nauru to prevent any recurrence.

In a desperate attempt to score a political point, Senator Hanson-Young can’t sufficiently amplify her outrage at the tragic death of this one asylum-seeker in detention. She demanded the Immigration Minister, his department and the previous government be held responsible. She seems less focused on holding the actual perpetrators to account. And when asked about her own culpability because of the Greens’ campaigning and their thwarting of Labor’s Malaysia Solution, the senator says that is “very different”. In 2010 she tweeted about a band at a pub just hours after hearing of a boat sinking off Christmas Island that killed 48 people. When asked the following year if her open borders posturing was partly to blame for 200 lives lost in another disaster, the Greens spokeswoman famously responded: “Of course not, tragedies happen, accidents happen.”

The Abbott government’s firm resolve on offshore processing and turning back boats has restored the integrity of our immigration system, secured our borders and saved billions. Crucially, there can be no doubt it has already saved anything up to 200 lives (going by death rates seen in the past). Yet the opportunistic Senator Hanson-Young uses the senseless death of one man to promote policies that would put the lives of thousands more at risk.