Does the fear of refugees flooding Australia keep you awake at night? Do you agree that ASIO needs more powers to track down, detain and interrogate "illegal" and "suspicious" people, especially Muslims?
If your answer is "Yes", then PM John Howard and his government have got you where they want you — spooked and ready to vote for those you think are toughest on "border protection".
Howard has certainly spooked the ALP. Federal Labor leader Mark Latham thinks Australia needs a new $500 million-a-year coastguard (to keep out "undesirable citizens") and a "homeland security" ministry — like the one in the US that has put armed guards on planes and created Guantanamo Bay as a legal black hole. He thinks "illegal" workers are the main threat to our jobs and conditions.
But think a bit about who's really responsible for the decline in our security. The destruction of permanent, full-time jobs? Check out the Liberals' Workplace Relations Act. Family farms going broke and rural communities disappearing? Try the banks and agribusiness sharks like Elders. A university system that's turning students into nerve-worn wrecks with huge debts? Have a look at the Coalition's higher education "reforms".
The plain truth is that Australia faces no threat at all from refugees and asylum seekers. From the mid 1970s, tens of thousands of Indo-Chinese "boat people" were accepted into the country without a problem. In the 1990s, after the Tienanmen Square massacre, many thousands of Chinese students were allowed to stay. So why are handfuls of Iraqis and Afghans now such a threat that they have to be stuck on Nauru? Why can't Australia treat fellow human beings fleeing poverty and repression with compassion in the 21st century? What's changed?
Johnny Howard's got elections to win, that's what. The Coalition's refugee policy is simply about creating scapegoats to reinforce support for the government and to undermine a spineless ALP. After all, while we think refugees and "aliens" are Australia's main problem, we're going to worry less about increases in interest rates, the destruction of health services and million-dollar handouts to posh private schools.
Never forget that Howard, Ruddock, Vanstone and the rest are a mafia of liars — liars about refugee children being thrown overboard, liars about asylum seekers not asking for asylum, liars about the horrors of life in detention centres, liars about Iraq's WMD's.
There is an alternative. The reality is that Australia could have a humane refugee policy tomorrow. The Howard government itself has shown this with its reception of refugees from Kosova in 1999, temporary though this was.
Many very poor countries today shoulder the main burden of sheltering the millions who flee war, persecution, environmental devastation and hunger. In 2002, the ratio of refugee population to host population in the Gaza Strip in Palestine was 1:2. In Iran, it was 1:30, In Pakistan, it was 1:95. In Canada, it was 1:399. And in wealthy Australia, it was just 1:800!
This country — built by the work of generations of migrants and refugees — must show humanity to some of the world's most defenceless people. It must increase the refugee and migrant intake, liberalise the immigration regulations, develop a plan of resettlement, education and training for new arrivals and guarantee them the same rights as all Australian citizens.
The Socialist Alliance also says:
* Close down the detention centres;
* Repeal the Border Protection Act;
* No to special permits for migrant workers;
* Repeal the temporary protection visa system; and
* Abolish all restriction on health care and social security for new arrivals.
Amy McDonell
[Amy McDonell is a Socialist Alliance Senate candidate in South Australia.]
From Green Left Weekly, July 14, 2004.
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