I’m sick of listening to the absolute rubbish being spouted
by our politicians over the past few days regarding the asylum seekers
issue. Very few of them show even the
tiniest amount of compassion for the desperation these refugees must be
experiencing which leads them to hand over thousands of dollars to a criminal
gang for a seat on a leaky, unseaworthy boat and the faint chance they might
reach Australia and the possibility of a new life. For some, the thought that they might drown
at sea would be a risk worth taking and far preferable to spending their lives
in a refugee camp in Malaysia or Indonesia.
The policies of both parties are wrong on this issue; both have as their first priority to keep these people out of Australia when the focus should be on finding ways to manage the legitimate needs of asylum seekers, fleeing dangers in their home countries. Both parties denigrate the boat people as ‘economic refugees’. For goodness sake, Australia was built on economic refugees who flooded out of Europe after WW2 because they saw the chance of a better life in the Lucky Country. My own family was among them and Australia was so keen to have us they subsidised our fares and we came as £10 tourists.
The difference now is that today’s refugees are not white Europeans. There’s no denying that there is a racist element to the debate. The language used gives it away: illegal immigrants (it’s not illegal to seek asylum), queue-jumpers (there’s no queue, Australia doesn’t have a waiting list), and the media looks for ways of emphasising that many of the refugees are Muslims.
The policies of both parties are wrong on this issue; both have as their first priority to keep these people out of Australia when the focus should be on finding ways to manage the legitimate needs of asylum seekers, fleeing dangers in their home countries. Both parties denigrate the boat people as ‘economic refugees’. For goodness sake, Australia was built on economic refugees who flooded out of Europe after WW2 because they saw the chance of a better life in the Lucky Country. My own family was among them and Australia was so keen to have us they subsidised our fares and we came as £10 tourists.
The difference now is that today’s refugees are not white Europeans. There’s no denying that there is a racist element to the debate. The language used gives it away: illegal immigrants (it’s not illegal to seek asylum), queue-jumpers (there’s no queue, Australia doesn’t have a waiting list), and the media looks for ways of emphasising that many of the refugees are Muslims.
And what a farce to spend a whole day debating a bill which
will be stopped in the Senate today. Where is
the integrity in that? You need to go
back to the drawing board, people, chuck out all the mealy-mouthed excuses for a policy and start
again. Get your act together and start
processing these refugees where they are – in Indonesia or Malaysia. Increase the Australian intake so that genuine refugees see a glimmer
of hope for the future. Put some funding
into resettlement programs in south-east Asia to get these people out of
camps. The only way to stop the people-smugglers
is to destroy their business plan by taking away the incentive for people to
use the last resort of a boat.
It was interesting that the Hobart Mercury this morning was the
only capital-city newspaper to say, bring the refugees here, bring them to
Tasmania for processing, we’ll look after them.
Interesting, isn’t it.
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