BY PIP HINMAN
SYDNEY — On the eve of immigration minister Philip Ruddock's departure for Geneva to attend a landmark ministerial meeting, beginning on December 12, of signatory states to the 1951 refugee convention, refugee rights activists have begun a campaign for a royal commission into the government's treatment of refugees.
The royal commission call, initiated by the Free the Refugees Campaign, was launched at a December 3 public meeting at the Granville Town Hall attended by 110 people. At the meeting Doug Cameron, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Sylvia Hale from the Greens, Max Lane from Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific, former Ethnic Communities Council (ECC) chairperson Salvatore Scevola and Ali-Mehdi Sobie, an Iraqi refugee who lost his wife and three daughters in a boat which sank off the coast of Indonesia, spoke to the theme: refugee rights are human rights.
Scevola strongly motivated the call for a royal commission, arguing that it was an important grass-roots initiative. Scevola decried the bipartisanship evident in the Liberal-Labor policy toward asylum seekers and told the meeting he was ousted from his ECC position largely because of his principled stand on the plight of the Tampa refugees.
Support for a royal commission has also come from journalist John Pilger, columnist and broadcaster Philip Adams, associate professor at the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism Wendy Bacon and radical historian Humphrey McQueen. Anne Coombs from the rapidly growing Rural Australians for Refugees has also endorsed the call.
At its December 6 delegates meeting, the ACT branch of the Community and Public Sector Union took a near unanimous decision to support the royal commission call. Delegate Andrew Hall told Green Left Weekly that the meeting called on the branch secretary "to take positive action rather than just support a feel-good motion, to counter the public perception that most people agree with the government's hard line".
Hall said that the branch secretary and national president accepted all proposals, including sending letters with the royal commission call to political parties and other appropriate groups and to raise it at the CPSU national executive for the union to adopt nationally. They also agreed to put out a media release.
"AusAID delegates suggested that the royal commission investigate all aspects of the costing and sources of funding for the 'Pacific solution', while others suggested investigating the outsourcing and privatisation of the asylum process. A delegate from the immigration department supported the additional protection that a royal commission would provide to them and Australian Protective Services staff", said Hall.
"The idea for a royal commission has obvious appeal because it will uncover the federal government's lies and deceit", Max Lane told GLW. "I'd be worried if I was Ruddock, because it's becoming increasingly obvious that more and more people are angry at the government's racism.
"Let's hope Ruddock gets a grilling at the UNHCR's meeting. We're certainly going to make it clear internationally that a growing number of Australians reject the racism inherent in the government's refugee policies."
On December 6, Professor Margaret Reynolds, president of the United Nations Association of Australia and a strong supporter of the idea of a refugees royal commission, called on Ruddock to review the government's policy of detaining refugee children. "Australia is the only country in the world which detains children", she said, adding that Ruddock should use his authority to immediately put an end to this cruel practice.
Australia is among 141 nation-states to have voluntarily signed on to the 1951 refugee convention or the 1967 protocol which widened its application. The December 12-13 Geneva gathering will be the first meeting of the signatories, as well as other states which have yet to sign up.
Lane explained that many poor Third World countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand "are yet to become party to the 1951 convention, yet they allow those in desperate need to stay — they don't throw them into detention". He contrasted this with the Howard government, which while a party to the convention, "is forcing the navy to intercept refugees at sea to prevent them from being processed here and bribing poor Pacific island governments to shoulder the responsibility."
"The campaign to generate the necessary political pressure to force a royal commission will be an important feature for the people's movements over the next three years", said Lane.
Ian Rintoul, from the Sydney-based Refugee Action Coalition, said: "Almost every aspect of the government's treatment of refugees is shrouded in secrecy. Potentially, a royal commission could lift the lid on that secrecy. The government has been negotiating 'return agreements' to deport refugees to countries like Iran and Syria, but who knows the details?
"The refugee movement and the refugees themselves have struggled for the last couple of years to get the truth out. Every time more of truth comes out, support for the refugees grows. If anything, the election result has increased people's determination to do something. The protest movement is going to be even more important in the year ahead. Another election is three years away, but a mass campaign can not only shift public opinion, it can force real change."
Brisbane indigenous rights activist Sam Watson told GLW: "The Howard government's response to the Tampa situation and the plight of refugees is the low-point in the history of the Australian nation since federation. No asylum seeker should be subjected to mandatory detention. No asylum seeker should be placed behind barbed wire.
"On Christmas day we want every Australian family to think about the children who are locked up in those stinking, depraved detention centres. The Howard government has dehumanised refugees. I support the call for a royal commission."
Rowena Ryan, a Sydney doctor involved in the formation of a Doctors Against Detention group, has added her support to the call for a royal commission. She wrote: "I am a GP who works every day with refugees, including those released from our gulag on the ridiculous temporary protection visas and am outraged at how these people are being treated in my name as an Australian and how our government, especially Philip Ruddock and John Howard, have demonised these unfortunate people and used them as political footballs when they have asked us for refuge. Free the refugees! Close the detention centres!"
Beryl Mulder, president of the Multicultural Council in the Northern Territory commented on the need for a broad inquiry: "Driving towards Darwin, the site of the proposed detention centre, now dubbed gulag Coonawarra, is an inhumane and horrific sight. High fences, rolls of barbed wire, this is no accommodation for human beings who have not been convicted of any crime. What happened to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty?
"While the council welcomes the inquiry [into the effects of detention on children], it is of the opinion that it should be much broader. We need to urgently review Australia's current policy and practices in relation to the treatment of asylum seekers. There should be an investigation into the appropriateness of mandatory detention of all asylum seekers. The council also urges the prime minister to seek viable alternatives to what he calls the Pacific solution."
Copies of the royal commission call can be obtained by emailing <justice4refugees@yahoo.com.au>.
From Green Left Weekly, December 12, 2001.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.