Anna Samson
Five minutes before it was scheduled for debate in the Senate on August 15, PM John Howard pulled the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill from the program.
Had the DUA bill become law, it would have resulted in the effective excision of the entire mainland of Australia from the migration zone, with all boat-arriving asylum seekers being forcibly transferred to Nauru for processing. The bill was an expansion of the "Pacific solution", aimed at removing fundamental legal safeguards from the refugee determination process, and severely limiting asylum seekers' access to health and welfare services. It would also have resulted in the detention of children and no guaranteed resettlement of refugees once their claims were processed.
Howard said he "didn't have the numbers" to ensure the legislation would be passed in the Senate. Family First Senator Steve Fielding had declared the day before that he would vote against the bill and Liberal Senator Judith Troeth had committed to cross the floor. It also seemed that Liberal Senators Marise Payne and Russell Trood, members of the Coalition-dominated Senate inquiry that unequivocally recommended the bill be dumped, were intending to abstain, as was National Party Senator Barnaby Joyce.
In the House of Representatives, Liberal MPs Judi Moylan, Petro Georgiou and Russell Broadbent had already crossed the floor to vote against the bill, and the Liberals' Bruce Baird and National Party whip John Forrest had abstained.
Much media commentary has focused on these dissenters, highlighting their courage in the face of huge pressure to hold the party line. It is true that defying Howard on a key platform of Liberal Party policy — draconian "border-protection" — was no small feat, and those MPs have probably compromised their preselections and any chance at ministerial positions.
But the real story is one of community defiance. A coordinated, sophisticated campaign waged by refugee advocacy organisations, bolstered by years of grassroots mobilisation, ensured that the bill was dumped. No MP would have followed through with their principles had there not been an influential extra-parliamentary movement by which they could justify their stance.
Australia is one of only a handful of nations that has considered foisting its relatively tiny number of refugees onto a poor neighbour and creating a two-tier system of case processing that would penalise asylum seekers because they arrived in a leaky boat rather than an aeroplane.
The "Pacific solution" is still in force: Australia's islands continue to be excised from the mainland, and people who arrive on these islands and exercise their legitimate right to seek protection will continue to be transferred to Nauru. That policy also includes an agreement with Papua New Guinea that any person who passes through PNG waters on route to Australia (a provision that catches almost all refugees from West Papua fleeing by boat) will be transferred to PNG.
On the very day that the DUA bill was dropped, eight Burmese asylum seekers arrived on Ashmore Reef. They are likely to be transferred to Nauru because they landed on an excised island.
Although the ALP was uncharacteristically vocal in its opposition to the bill, it has been very quiet about the newly arrived Burmese. Perhaps this is because Labor voted in favour of the government's "Pacific Solution" and supports the naval patrols that could result in refugees being returned to persecution.
Immigration minister Amanda Vanstone was correct when she said that the defeat of the bill means that there is now a fundamental inconsistency in Australia's treatment of boat-arriving asylum seekers. No asylum seeker, whether they arrive on the Australian mainland or on an excised island, should be forced to another country for processing.
The dropping of the DUA bill should create the space for a more informed and compassionate debate about refugee policy in Australia, which hopefully will see the end of all offshore processing, temporary protection visas and mandatory detention.
[Anna Samson is the acting national coordinator of A Just Australia. These are her personal views.]