2019-10-31
More people, more compassion, more welcome
Membership Officer: What convinced you to join the Greens?
New Member: Your policies on climate change and refugees
By Rob Delves, Green Issue Co-editor
Many people are indeed attracted to The Greens because of our approach to refugees – we insist that Australia must honour its global commitments to treat refugees fairly and we call on our country to openly welcome refugees with humanity and compassion, rather than the current response of fear and obsession with border security. However, that stark contrast with the mainstream parties and media also attracts a lot of anger towards us. I’d like to detail The Greens refugee policies that strongly distinguish us from other parties and comment on some criticisms that are thrown at us because of these policies.
So firstly, what exactly are we proposing that’s radically different to the Lib-Lab consensus?
MORE PEOPLE: Australia’s numbers aren’t as wonderfully generous as the government boasts! The Greens have a plan to offer more people a safe haven by increasing our annual humanitarian refugee intake from approximately 18,750 to 50,000 places per year.
LESS DETENTION: Much less! By immediately ending offshore detention and bringing every person detained on Manus Island and Nauru to safety and freedom in Australia, we will create a fairer and safer system that helps more people and meets our obligations under international law. We will also save $1.9 billion in public money over four years. In addition, we will introduce a 7 day limit for onshore detention. This is enough time to conduct the necessary checks and assess a claim for asylum, without subjecting people seeking asylum to undue risk.
MORE LIKE CANADA: Let citizen initiative and compassion rip! The Greens will create a Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. This program will allow Australian citizens, permanent residents, consortiums and organisations to sponsor the resettlement of refugees from abroad. The program will result in minimal costs to government, as the private sponsors will provide financial support and settlement assistance for the refugees they sponsor. This program is based on one in Canada, which has resettled 300,000 refugees since 1979. Canada has reported better employment and social outcomes achieved by privately sponsored refugees over government-assisted refugees.
LESS OF THE MEAN-SPIRITED NASTINESS: How about some simple basic fairness? The Greens are critical of the bipartisan campaign to demonise asylum seekers as illegals and a threat to our border security, including a potential terrorist threat. Hence it becomes normal to double down on harsh and inhumane treatment of these people seeking our protection. By contrast, The Greens believe that refugees and people seeking asylum living in Australian communities should receive fair levels of support from the government. This would include income support, housing, access to Medicare, trauma and torture counselling, English language courses and employment assistance. We will abolish Temporary Protection Visas and reintroduce Permanent Protection Visas for refugees.
MORE CO-OPERATION: Let’s try to work it out together! The displacement of people because of war, persecution and climate change is a global problem that requires global answers. This is why the Greens’ plan also provides $500 million over four years to support organisations like the UNHCR and partner countries in our region to establish a system that can assess people’s claims for protection in Indonesia and Malaysia in a timely fashion, and provide a ‘dignity package’ while they are waiting, which would allow people to access healthcare, education, English classes and work permits.
I’m proud to support this humane, evidence-based platform when discussing refugee issues with people. However, I’m the first to admit that there are difficult ethical and practical problems involved, especially given that the worldwide numbers seeking asylum are huge. And our platform doesn’t address every aspect of the situation.
So, secondly, what questions and criticisms are leveled at our policies and how might we respond? What follows is largely based on my experience in conversation with voters, plus reading and thinking I’ve done. Of course, readers will disagree with some of the following points, but I offer them as ideas to help us think deeply, seek common ground with other people and better persuade them to our policies.
1. POPULATION GROWTH: If we increase the annual humanitarian intake by more than 30,000 (to 50,000), while maintaining the established migrant intake of 190,000, this will result in unsustainable and excessive population growth.
I’m not sure that the intention is simply to add another 30,000 to our population every year. Some years ago, Bob Brown suggested that Australia shouldn’t change the number of people we accept each year, but change the balance to something closer to equal numbers of refugees and migrants. My impression was that he was floating a possible approach, definitely not announcing a major policy initiative. Population is such a politically fraught issue that all political parties struggle to reach agreement on numbers – The Greens are no exception. And that diversity of thinking is replicated in the general population: ABC Vote Compass 2019 showed that voters are approximately evenly split on the question of how many immigrants Australia should accept – about one-third say more, one-third say fewer and another third say the intake is about right where it is now.
Is rapid population growth a very important factor is our looming ecological disaster? YES – if we simply add many more people and continue with our Business-as-Usual technologies and lifestyles, then population growth makes things even worse. NOT MUCH – if we make the transition to a low-impact regenerative economy.
My own preference is an annual intake of around 100,000, with a 50:50 split between refugees and migrants. However, I admit that’s not much more than a gut-level feeling for some middle-of-the-road position.
I’m sure many Greens will disagree! However, I hope we can agree that it’s more important to stress the following: Even at 50,000 per year, refugees make very little difference to whether we have a Big Australia or not. Migrant numbers and birth rates are the deciding factors.
2. JUMPING QUEUES, STEALING PLACES FROM THE DESERVING: Boat arrivals should be rejected because they are stealing places from the more deserving refugees waiting patiently for years in camps overseas.
This is certainly a serious ethical problem and we should be open about it. We should admit that for every person who gains protection at the border, there is one less place for someone in need who does not have the resources to get themselves here by boat. Or by plane – what a difference a plane makes! We’ve only recently been alerted to the very large numbers who arrive by plane. Some of them are definitely fleeing persecution, but their arrival is less honest, as their visa states they are tourists, whereas the boat arrivals are clearly and honestly asylum seekers from the get-go. It’s therefore unsurprising that plane arrivals are found to be genuine refugees in much smaller numbers.
Why are the plane arrivals allowed to stay in the community, working and receiving decent support while their refugee claims are assessed? Actually, I don’t have any problem with that – it’s how we should treat all onshore asylum seekers. What’s wrong morally, legally, and just in terms of sheer common sense is the contrast with the cruelty metered out to boat arrivals. Which leads to the third issue.
3. WE NEED DETENTION AND BOAT TURNBACKS TO PUT PEOPLE SMUGGLERS OUT OF BUSINESS: We’ve seen what happens when there aren’t strong deterrence policies – boat numbers spiral out of control and there’s no border security. Detention Centres are necessary to deter the evil people smugglers.
I think we can be confident in arguing against the whole circus of demonizing boat people and the cruelty of indefinite detention. Moreover, we can certainly ask people to take a few deep breaths, step back and agree that firstly, boat arrival numbers are really quite small (less than plane arrivals), secondly, a very high percentage are found to be genuine refugees and thirdly, over the decades since the first boats appeared in 1979 they have settled in and become great citizens. Plenty of statistics as evidence. We should gently point out the absurdity of the demonizing language used: potential terrorists and criminals, illegals, not poor enough to be genuine refugees, the “evil people smugglers trying to sneak though our borders.” This last one is perhaps the most absurd, as the aim of every person on those boats is the total opposite of sneaking in – they want to find the Australian border authorities and declare “I’m a refugee, please assess my refugee claims!” But best of all are the thousands of wonderful stories that refugees have to tell – we can start with an inspiring and very relevant story in the Bible called The Good Samaritan, told by a man who was himself a child refugee. Stories beat statistics every time.
However, we still face the real political challenge that Australians are crazily threatened by boats. Tim Winton nailed it in his famous 2015 Palm Sunday speech (it’s inspiring – look it up):
“When people arrive with nothing but… a crying need for safe refuge we’re terrified. This fear has deranged us. It overturns all our moral standards, our pity, our tradition of decency, to the extent that we do everything in our power to deny these people their legal right to asylum.”
Too true – and a lot of this fear is created by the deliberate targeting of boat people for political purposes. Labor introduced mandatory detention in 1992 when it was well behind in the polls, mainly because many people felt angry that the neoliberal reforms foisted on them had left them worse off. It was politically difficult to challenge the increase in migration: it was unpopular in the community but strenuously championed by the powerful business lobby. So Keating’s government targeted boat arrivals because they are an easy, visible target to demonstrate you’re doing something tough about migration. Howard was taking notes and took the hatred to a new level in 2001, to divert attention to the fact that his government was also on the nose for the same economic reasons. It worked electoral wonders in both cases, especially and obviously for Howard in 2001. And still does today, with Dutton and Morrison able to double down again and again on the cruelty while large numbers of voters cheer. Not so much a conspiracy, more a canny application of political trial and error.
All this is worth pointing out, but the fear runs deep and The Greens have a huge political problem explaining how a compassionate, welcoming approach won’t lead once more to the very large number of boat arrivals that freaked out the Labor government in 2012 and 2013. I recall a talk by John Menadue, the public servant who delivered Fraser’s 1979 humane response to the Indo-Chinese refugee crisis. He told Fraser that the government could only keep the Australian people onside if no more refugees got on boats for the journey to Australia. Simple political reality. So they threw huge resources into processing claims in Indonesia and Malaysia, then flew them here, assuring the refugees that if they waited they would be safely settled in Australia. It worked – and as a bonus it was the final nail in the coffin of the White Australia Policy.
I’m a great fan of Menadue, also of Tim Costello, Frank Brennan and Robert Manne – four relentless critics of current policy and champions of a humane, welcoming approach. However, over the last couple of years, they’ve called on progressive politics to adopt the same political pragmatism that got the job done in 1979/80. They want to maintain Stop the Boats as the deal for persuading the public to accept more decency and compassion such as in those Greens policies described at the beginning of this article, especially an end to all mandatory detention. The arguments against boat turnbacks are indeed strong and compelling, and therefore this call is anathema to many Greens. Boat turnbacks are definitely not Greens policy. However, I leave you with this thought: having a clear policy to avoid a 2013-style explosion of boats is the one question I find difficult to answer in conversation with many people. As with all refugee issues, it’s messy, complex, riddled with ethical dilemmas.
Header photo: Refugee rally in Melbourne in February 2016. Credit: Julian Meehan, AG Creative Library
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]