Refugee debate takes us back to Howard era

Julia Gillard could show leadership by exploding asylum-seeker myths and misconceptions

POLITICS by myth and slogan has taken over as the currency of public debate, nowhere more so than on refugee policy.

"Moving Australia forward" was the title of Julia Gillard's speech last week in which she announced a set of policies taking Australia unmistakably backwards to the Howard years. Turn back the boats, cries Tony Abbott, but don't look at the fine print that shows such an approach cannot be implemented unless we allow people to drown at sea.

Even the hardy perennial about boatpeople as queue jumpers has re-entered the debate. The government recently moved its immigration officers from Islamabad to Dubai because it regards Pakistan as too dangerous. Presumably the 1.7 million Afghans who have fled to Pakistan and the 1.1 million in Iran should now make their way to the Persian Gulf and form an orderly queue outside the Australian embassy to find out whether they are among the chosen few Australia takes each year as refugees.

Or they can take their chances on tracking down Australian immigration officials when they venture into Pakistan and Iran. Then there are the people in Indonesia who, even if they are lucky enough to be processed by the massively overstretched office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, can wait up to 10 years to be resettled as refugees. No wonder that a few take their chances with people-smugglers.

Gillard told the Lowy Institute last week that she respected the anxieties of many in Australia about boatpeople. Fair enough, but it would be better if she put more effort into trying to quell them. She said people such as her parents "who have worked hard all their lives can't abide the idea that others might get an inside track to special privileges". Missing from her speech was a clear rebuttal of this myth, perpetrated through anonymous emails and flyers claiming refugees get more benefits than pensioners and other Australians. They don't: they are entitled to exactly the same payments, on exactly the same grounds, as anyone else. Most find jobs instead, work hard and typically have high achieving children.

Despite the resentment over asylum-seekers forcing themselves on to Australia, the government decides who to accept as refugees and who to reject. Canberra could not have made that clearer in recent months: the rate at which it has refused requests for asylum from Afghans has shot up from below 20 per cent to 70 per cent. A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Evans says no new instructions have been given to the officials who conduct the assessments but guidelines on the situation in Afghanistan and other source countries are updated continuously.

If there has been a dramatic improvement in conditions in Afghanistan, it has escaped the attention of everyone else, including Australian troops encountering increasing Taliban resistance. According to refugee lawyer David Manne, "the strong body of information that has the basis of the high recognition rate for Afghan refugees remains current but what has been added are a small number of highly questionable titbits that seek to paint a different picture". Those refused can apply for a so-called independent merits review of their cases, but if the government does not like those outcomes it can change the rules, as it has done in the past.

At least the Prime Minister did tackle another enduring myth last week: that, to use a Hansonism, we are being swamped by boatpeople. While condemning refugee advocate Julian Burnside for talking about "rednecks in marginal seats" (all voters in marginal seats are sacred political objects), she took up his challenge to point out that, at the present rate of arrivals, it would take about 20 years to fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground with boatpeople. "He is right, because in the context of our migration program, the number of asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Australia is very, very minor," she said. "It is less than 1.5 per cent of permanent migrants each year."

This response originated with the same source that has informed all her public actions since becoming Prime Minister: opinion polling. Last month, Essential Research asked people to estimate the proportion of boatpeople in Australia's immigration intake. Ten per cent thought it was half or more, 15 per cent about a quarter and 13 per cent about one-tenth, while another 30 per cent said they didn't know. Last year, about 190,000 permanent migrants and another 110,000 on long-term visas came to Australia, compared to 2726 boatpeople. This year, we have been "swamped" by 3684 boat arrivals so far. At least if the Prime Minister keeps putting these figures into perspective, there is some hope the message will get through.

Gillard is pretending that there is a distinction between the Howard government's Pacific solution and her plan to process refugees in East Timor. She uses the fig leaf of East Timor having signed the Refugee Convention, as opposed to Nauru, which hasn't (but is now offering to do so, quick smart, in return for another bundle of Australian cash). The main obligation of member countries under the convention is not to return people at risk to the countries from which they have fled. The same commitment has been made by Indonesia, which has not signed the convention.

Gillard makes another fictional distinction by saying she wants the UNHCR involved in her East Timor solution. It already handles asylum-seeker claims in Indonesia, as well as other non-signatory countries. It also processed some of the refugee applications in Nauru under the Pacific solution.

She has dressed up her East Timor proposal as a regional solution after a few cursory calls, including to President Jose Ramos-Horta. The UNHCR has been trying for years to drum up interest in a regional agreement on the protection of refugees. One aim is to make people feel safer in countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia so that they are less likely to move on, including by hiring people-smugglers to take them to Australia. If, on top of that, Western nations such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand can agree to resettle those the UNHCR assesses as refugees within a reasonable period, the incentive to hop on boats disappears. This is what a true regional agreement on refugees would involve, but progress has been slow.

The Gillard initiative threatens to do more harm than good to the goal of regional co-operation. Other countries are likely to see it for what it is: shifting the responsibilities of the richest nation in the region to the poorest. This was the problem with Nauru. Despite Australia's best efforts, it could not persuade other countries to take more than small numbers of refugees and was forced to accept most of those from the Tampa.

Gillard is explicit about her priorities: "I want to have a circumstance in our region where there is a regional processing centre and there is no point in getting on a boat, risking your life, paying a people-smuggler, only to then be returned to the regional processing centre."

In other words, those who head to Christmas Island would be carted off to East Timor, just as the Howard government took them to Nauru. But regional co-operation should not be a euphemism for looking after Australia's interests; other countries also have to see clear benefits.

If a real international processing centre were ever to materialise, it would be the product of a wider agreement between countries, not something imposed by Australia.

Gillard has shown she is adept at stealing her opponent's policy clothes, a political tradition that extends back at least to Robert Menzies. If she wins the election, perhaps she could use her authority to explode the myths and misconceptions on which such policies are based. Unlike parroting focus groups, that would show true leadership.