The following are abridged speeches to a June 22 Refugee Action Committee forum in Canberra, given by Kerrie Tucker, Greens Senate candidate in the ACT; Carmen Lawrence, ALP president and MP for Fremantle; and James Vassilopoulos, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Fraser.
Kerrie Tucker
The current system of mandatory detention places us in breach of our international obligations and violates the fundamental human rights of asylum seekers. The Australian Greens will work to abolish such detention.
There are inadequacies in the international definition of refugees. We support an expansion of the humanitarian program and humanitarian visa classes to assist people displaced due to famine, war, poverty or political persecution.
We call for asylum seekers to be housed in open reception areas until health and security checks are completed or 14 days has passed, whichever occurs first. We reject labelling asylum seekers as "illegal" and "queue jumpers". We affirm the right of anyone to seek asylum.
The Greens reject the so-called "Pacific Solution" as an affront to human rights and refugee conventions. We reject the repatriation of people who arrive without a valid visa. We also reject the privatisation of detention centres. We oppose the separation of refugees into permanent and temporary categories and reject the rule whereby asylum seekers cannot gain permanent residency if they have spent more than seven days in a third country.
We reject any excision of any part of Australia from the migration zone and any restriction on asylum seekers to challenge decisions in the courts.
We want to expand the refugee intake, and to eliminate mandatory detention, temporary protection visas (TPVs) and all other discriminatory treatment of refugees. We want domestic legislation that fulfils our international obligations and want stronger international conventions on the rights of refugees.
There needs to be a comprehensive and judicial inquiry into all aspects of the people smuggling disruption program, including the SIEV-X tragedy. Overseas aid should be increased to 0.7% of GDP.
Carmen Lawrence
Change is something achieved over time, and I don't regard the ALP's official policy as finished business.
There is similarity between the Refugee Action Committee's and Labor for Refugees' positions. Responding to the distress over the Tampa decision, a group of us got together to argue for an end to mandatory detention, the "Pacific Solution" and TPVs. We want to address the vilification of asylum seekers and the racist elements within this policy.
Labor for Refugees hasn't yet succeeded in its goals, but we have made progress. There is a significant change in our policy, and also in the discourse inside the party.
Our key policies are gradations of detention so that people are held for as long as necessary for health and identity checks and then managed in Commonwealth facilities according to their claim. Discrimination is at the heart of detaining asylum seekers; deterrence only applies to those who arrive by boat, not those who arrive by plane.
We also have a strong commitment to remove children into community-based accommodation. The recently released Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission report describes what happens to children in detention. The government's response was to say those in detention are not refugees. This is false, as most people on Nauru have had their refugee claims upheld.
We are making significant progress in the party. Abolition of the "Pacific Solution" must happen immediately. Apart from anything else, the costs are obscene (government estimates are that the "Pacific Solution" costs $200 million). The bizarre thing is we take people who already are fragile, hold them for three years in "time torture" and then accept them as refugees and say we'll fix it up.
We want to reform the refugee appeals tribunal by making it answerable to a retired judge. Rolling TPVs should be ended. Unfortunately, our current policy proposes TPVs for two years. We are also committed to a full independent inquiry into the sinking of SIEV-X.
James Vassilopoulos
The Socialist Alliance wants to close all the on- and off-shore concentration camps and end mandatory detention. We want to repeal the misnamed Border Protection Act because it is really about keeping asylum seekers out. Christmas Island should be returned to the migration zone.
We oppose TPVs, accurately described by mental health professionals a "living hell". We say "No" to the deportations, which have too often led to deaths.
Any discussion of solutions needs to address the global refugee crisis of some 20 million refugees. The causes are clear: war, poverty and the division of the world into rich and poor. Any solution must include the largest refugee population — 3 million Palestinians who should have their own nation.
If capital can move freely across the globe, why shouldn't people move across the world? John Lennon's song Imagine provides a good example of the type of alternative we need.
"Imagine there's no countries/It isn't hard to do/Nothing to kill or die for/No religion too/Imagine all the people/Living life in peace."
We need a discussion on the strategy and tactics of how best to free the refugees. It won't happen simply by electing a few different politicians. All of us are already part of a dynamic movement for change that has forced some significant reforms. Our involvement in protests, in RAC, psychologist's associations, Rural Australians for Refugees and more has pressured the ALP to adopt a better position, and even forced the Coalition to release some children from detention. We have to keep this pressure up.
The Socialist Alliance has been campaigning for refugee rights since our inception in 2001. We helped organise the protests when the Tampa was turned back from Australian shores. Our members are active in refugee groups and coalitions all over the country.
But let's not forget the people who have been leading this movement — the refugees themselves. Their brave struggle — which has included hunger strikes, petitioning and protests — has inspired the massive groundswell of solidarity. Let's build on this.
From Green Left Weekly, August 4, 2004.
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