Morrison wants refugee convention overhauled

THE devil is in the lack of detail in the radical new policy.

OPPOSITION immigration spokesman Scott Morrison has penetrated the fog of denial, confusion and policy failure by calling for an Australian-led reinterpretation of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention that governs rich nation refugee acceptance.

It is hard to imagine a speech more polarising or contentious than that delivered by Morrison to the Lowy Institute yesterday. In one sense it is long overdue, an effort to find a new model for refugee policy. But Immigration Minister Chris Bowen fingered its weakness, accusing Morrison of playing with a "thought bubble" devoid of detail.

Morrison's analysis begins with the recognition that Australia's asylum-seeker policy has reached a dead-end and that this mirrors a global crisis. Australia's debate about detention, refugee determination and offshore processing is inevitable yet removed from any framework for solution.

Morrison's plan attacks the legal and moral foundations of present asylum-seeker policy: that boatpeople regardless of number or source nation who self-select Australia are entitled to be processed here and remain here if deemed to be refugees.

He points out asylum-seekers arriving in Australia do not come from our region. They come from other parts of the world, notably Afghanistan, and the "primary reason for their coming to our region is to gain access to Australia". Other regional nations have signed the 1951 UN convention, notably The Philippines, Laos, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, New Zealand, Cambodia and China, but these countries are not the target. Australia is the target. In short, there is no refugee crisis in our region but there is, instead, an Australian problem.

For Morrison, Labor's East Timor initiative - privately opposed by Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd - will never work because it misconceives the situation.

The actual regional crisis centres on Afghanistan and surrounding nations. There are 2.4 million Afghans living in countries of first asylum, in Pakistan and Iran. Afghans count for one in four of world refugees.

"This is where a regional solution is needed," Morrison says. "And that is where Australia should be focusing our diplomatic efforts."

Julia Gillard is right to talk about a regional solution but "she's talking about the wrong region".

What does a regional policy involve? Morrison nominates three points. It means offshore processing; it means resettlement in third countries such as Australia; and it means repatriation, both orderly and forced returns, with UN co-operation, to the source nation.

Indeed, he recruits Malcolm Fraser's handling of the Indochina boatpeople crisis 30 years ago as the template.

This is illuminating because there has been no single item of Australia's public policy subject to such relentless media fabrication for so long. The key to Fraser's policy was stopping the boats (as distinct from welcoming the boats), with only about 2000 boat arrivals at this time.

Under international agreement camps were established in Southeast Asia as places of first asylum where claims were assessed. The arrival of Indochinese refugees in Australia was via an offshore program. "In many ways Malcolm Fraser was the father of offshore processing of refugee claims for Australia," Morrison says.

This leads to his most contentious proposition: that under negotiated agreements asylum-seekers arriving in Australia not be processed but returned to camps in countries of first asylum near Afghanistan while Australia would accept more refugees direct from these camps. "We would continue to receive Afghan refugees to Australia," Morrison says. "However, under this scheme, it would not be people-smugglers making the decision."

Asked by this column yesterday, Morrison confirmed the implication in his speech that "in the end we may have to take more refugees as Malcolm Fraser did". But under his scheme, none would be boat arrivals to these shores.

The bigger picture Morrison sketches is the untenable strain being imposed on the 1951 convention. There are 10 million refugees worldwide, with global people movement certain to become a greater problem.

The convention defines a refugee as a person "with a well-founded fear of being persecuted", yet this does not cover people fleeing because of civil war, famine, natural disaster or economic hardship. Such people are not refugees.

The absence of other international instruments for these categories means the convention will be abused as a surrogate to manage such disadvantaged people. (It is already happening.)

The dilemma is that "a refugee in one jurisdiction is just as likely to be assessed as an economic migrant in another", Morrison says. At present Australia's processing system is finding only 50 per cent of arriving Afghans to be refugees.

Morrison calls on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to re-think its focus with signatory countries, notably Australia, Canada, the US and Britain.

His message is that "permanent resettlement is not the primary objective or even preferred outcome envisaged by the convention". Moreover, resettlement is not the experience of most refugees, with less than 1 per cent being resettled in a third country.

"The vast majority will either return home or remain in the country of first asylum," Morrison says. He argues that "resettlement as a universal solution is not practical" and merely "holds out false hope". This means much of the refugee debate is not focused on the main game, the countries of first asylum, with developing nations hosting 80 per cent of all refugees. This is where the international focus should fall.

Instead, Australia's debate is almost exclusively about those who arrive here. This gives priority to people who are sufficiently mobile with enough funds to pay smugglers, as distinct from those with the greatest need.

In short, Morrison wants a new international debate to reinterpret the convention's meaning.

Conspicuously short of detail, he argues greater assistance be given to countries of first asylum and greater priority be accorded to repatriation back to source nations, notably where refugees claims have been rejected. He talks about creation of safe resettlement zones in Afghanistan backed by UNHCR observers. Yet the viability of such ideas must be doubtful.

Bowen damned Morrison with faint praise yesterday. He welcomed the Coalition's recognition that regional and international response was critical to the people movement issue, but he dismissed Morrison's framework as speculation without detail.

In fact, it is a radical shift in Coalition thinking, the risk being it is too radical and too impractical.