Sparliament : Politics In Action

This story from ABC News and Sydney Morning Herald articles. First ABC News:

No-one in immigration detention should be held for longer than 12 months unless they pose a significant risk to the community, a parliamentary committee has recommended. The limit on detention is one of 18 recommendations made to the
Federal Government by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration today in its
report, Immigration Detention in Australia: A New Beginning.
...
The report recommends that the Immigration Department make public what the criteria is for deciding that a detainee poses an "unacceptable risk" to the community. It also says health checks should be completed within five days and if the
Department of Immigration can not establish a person's identity or a security
assessment is incomplete within 90 days that a procedure should be developed
where they can be released from detention under certain conditions such as
strict reporting requirements. The report recommends that a person detained for
longer than 12 months have access to judicial review and those being held be
no longer charged for their detention.

First of all: they were charged for their detention? OUCH. Like it's not bad enough that you've been persecuted in your home country, you then are locked up in conditions which have been compared to high-security prisons. After I dug around a little, I found a Crikey article which talks about this very issue, claiming that 18 months' detention came to a cost of AU$160,000 for asylum seeker Kasian Wililo, who at the time of receiving the bill was already a NSW resident living with his wife and children and holding a full-time job. Here's a slice of ridiculous pie for you:

Mr Wililo is not alone. As of the 30 June 2008, there were 386 persons with
active detention debts amounting to $7,705,576, according to Department of
Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) spokesperson Sandi Logan.

Any former detainee not granted a Permanent Protection Visa or
Humanitarian Visa is billed for their time in detention, and any
costs associated with their subsequent deportation.

According to Logan, "... the department has a standardised cost charged per day for
detention across all mainland facilities. $125.40 a day is now the standardised
rate charged across all mainland centres. The daily maintenance amount is
never more than the actual cost of detention incurred by the
Commonwealth."

So Wililo was being charged the equivalent of a low-to-medium-range Sydney hotel rate in order to be treated like a criminal? Apparently so.

If you're going to charge them the price of a hotel, treat them like they're in a hotel. There's no reason to assume that any asylum seekers are bad people aside from racist presumptions and prejudices. If we follow the judicial model, these people are innocent. They have not committed offenses apart from being 'unauthorised', which is not exactly surprising given that they're refugees, they are obviously not going to go through a paper-trail process which is traceable back to them and which may take years to execute.

Knowing that, we should be happy that these recommendations have been made in the report, right? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, it's a great step forward in ensuring that the atrocities of detention centres prevalent during the Howard years are not repeated, particularly in regards to children in detention and long terms while awaiting trial. Nevertheless, these changes are not nearly enough.

One of the issues which continues to irk me is that of deportation of asylum seekers whose applications are denied. A recent case is that of Muhammed Hussain, an Afghan man who was rejected under Howard's "Pacific Solution" and was returned to Afghanistan accordingly:

[He] was thrown down a well by gunmen, believed to be the Taliban. Then in
front of onlookers including members of his family, the killers threw a hand
grenade down the well and he was decapitated...Accounts of the killing were
given to Phil Glendenning, director of the Edmund Rice Centre, this week. He
told the Herald he has verified the events with four different sources in
Afghanistan.

Mr Glendenning met Mr Hussain in January in Kabul, where the Australian was
filming a documentary, A Well-Founded Fear, about asylum seekers rejected during
the Howard years.

Mr Glendenning wants the Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, to reopen the
cases of the rejected Afghans "as a matter of urgency". He also wants the
Government to "put in place processes and policies to make sure this never ever
happens again".

Let's hope that Chris Evans does indeed do so, as human lives are at risk here and the ridiculous notion of sending people who have outrightly said they are at risk of murder in their home countries do not do so lightly.

Yet even when refugees are released from detention centres, the visas on which they are put are ridiculously inadequate.

Paris Aristotle, writing in The Age newspaper, produced an article which states well the inadequacies of the current system, which begins by discussing an Iraqi man identified only as 'Ali':

He fled Iraq in the wake of Saddam's persecution of Kurds and Shiites. His
village was raided by Iraqi soldiers killing hundreds of people, including his
father. They are searing images in his young mind, haunting his life and
challenging his faith in humanity...

After eight years in Pakistani refugee camps and the threat of repatriation
to Iraq, Ali and the remains of his family resorted to people smugglers to
escape. They made it to Australian territory only to be locked in detention at
Woomera for more than a year.

Razor wire, regular protests, open displays of self-harming and widespread psychological distress — this was the antithesis of what an already traumatised teenage boy needed. Ali and his family were eventually granted refugee status but their three-year temporary protection visa (TPV) meant they were not be entitled to English language classes, assistance to find employment or other settlement services, and the time did not count towards obtaining citizenship.

So even when a family is deemed as requiring protection, the TPV turns out to be extremely inadequate in equipping refugees with the skills and support needed to integrate and contribute effectively into the Australian community. So you might be asking: How many people are actually released from asylum? Surely it must be riddled with terrorists?

Well no, in fact the same article goes on to say:

In reality, more than 90% of asylum seekers held in mandatory detention in
Australia and as a part of the "Pacific Solution" were granted protection in
accordance with the law. Of those remaining, in detention for several years
more, most ultimately received visas also. Many of those visas were granted for
compassionate reasons, not necessarily due to their asylum claims but because
the system had harmed them so severely.

So we spend millions of dollars creating and maintaining centres which treat people, human beings fleeing the governments we denounce, like criminals. The state of these detention centres is extremely psychologically damaging. As Paris Aristotle says, "Razor wire, regular protests, open displays of self-harming and widespread psychological distress — this was the antithesis of what an already traumatised teenage boy needed." Yet that is exactly what Ali received upon arriving to Australia in an attempt to start a new life and escape the memories of oppression and genocide.

I should point out, however, that there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Although these recommendations are a good start, there are some politicians who are taking a stand against them. Surprisingly enough, the two who have made their voices most loudly heard can be found in the Liberal party in the form of Petro Georgiou, Alan Eggleston, and Sarah Hanson-Young. The official dissenting report can be found here (PDF).

1.5 We strongly disagree that public servants should have such unfettered power
to detain for 12 months without independent external scrutiny which can ensure
the release of people whose detention is assessed as being unnecessary with
respect to the specified criteria.
1.6 If the detention criteria are enshrined in law as the Committee recommends (Recommendation 12), a detained person should not be denied the right for 12 months to have a court examine whether the executive’s decision to detain him or her is in accordance with the law.
1.7 This is a grossly excessive period.

I strongly suggest reading the dissent in full, as it provides many more quotes and statistics too broad to post here.

There are many objections to pushing for improved refugee rights, and most of these are addressed in the Edmund Rice Centre's document: Debunking Myths about Asylum Seekers. In terms of which myths I've heard most in my conversations, three stick out from this document.

Myth #4: That we're being 'swamped' with boat people: Ignoring the Hanson-esque phrasing of this ridiculous claim, we have to look at international figures regarding refugees. The best document for this comes straight from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has published a document called 2007 Global Trends. In every indicator, Australia ranks in the lowest category, and in some graphs doesn't appear at all due to our exceptionally low intake rate. Australia is one of the few countries with a humanitarian refugee 'quota', which was this year raised to 13,500 places by the Rudd Government. However, since 2006 that quota has never been reached. When we compare this to international statistics, it becomes clear that Australia is one of the least-affected countries in terms of refugees. Over 300,000 refugees arrive in Europe each year, and in 2000 Iran and Pakistan hosted over a million Afghan refugees, according the the ERC myths sheet. The UNHCR makes it clear in the Global Trends information sheet that between 83 and 90 percent of refugees remain in their region of origin, usually hosted by countries neighbouring their home country.

Myth #5 and #10 combined: That they're not real refugees but actually terrorists: To quote the Debunking Myths document:

97% of applicants from Iraq and 93% of applicants from Afghanistan seeking
asylum without valid visas in Australia in 1999 were recognised as genuine
refugees. Therefore, under Australian law they were found to be eligible to stay
in Australia. Generally, 84% of all asylum seekers are found to be legitimate
refugees and are able to stay in Australia.

This is incorrect. Just 11 of more than 13,000 people who sought asylum in Australia last year were rejected on "character grounds". Only one was regarded as a security risk because of suspected terrorist links. He had come by air, not by boat.

Government intelligence briefings concerning the threat of terrorist attacks have not
mentioned asylum seekers. There remains no evidence that any asylum seekers
currently arriving by boat have any connection to terrorism. Those who perpetrated the September 11 attacks did not arrive in the United States as Asylum Seekers. They flew first class using valid papers.

Myth #7: There is no alternative to mandatory detention: Again quoting directly from the Debunking Myths document:

Asylum seekers claims need to be assessed for legitimacy. Australia is the
only Western country that mandatorily detains asylum seekers whilst their
claims are being heard. Asylum seekers are not criminals and detention
should be minimal. Community based alternatives to mandatory detention can be found internationally and within the current Australian parole system.
A select Committee of the NSW Parliament has costed alternatives to incarceration
including home detention and transitional housing. The average cost of
community based programs are (per person, per day): Parole: $5.39. Probation: $3.94. Home Detention: $58.83. These options are clearly more economically efficient, and much more humane.

Sweden receives similar numbers of asylum seekers as Australia, despite having less than half the population. Detention is only used to establish a persons identity and to conduct criminal screening. Most detainees are released within a very short time, particularly if they have relatives or friends living in Sweden. Of the 17,000 asylum seekers currently in Sweden 10,000 reside outside the detention centres. Children are only detained for the minimum possible time (a maximum of 6 days).

Again I recommend you read the document in full, as there are a lot of strong statistics there. you can also find further 'mythbusting' documents via the Refugee Action Committee page Facts and Myths about Refugees.

Overall, there remain many problems not only with mandatory detention, but also with how refugees and asylum seekers are treated after they have been accepted. Significant flaws in the TPV system remain, and the notion of forcing former detainees to pay for their time in detention, which is usually extended by fault of slow judicial process rather than by that of themselves, is ridiculous. hopefully this review is just the first step of many on the path to treating refugees and asylum seekers with respect and acknowledgement of their human rights.

Further recommended links:

• The Refugee Council of Australia: Full of good information in an easy-to-navigate form, I recommend the FAQ section if you're new to the issue
• Rural Australians for Refugees: An organisation of over 15,000 members in support of refugee reform and ongoing support
• Asylum Seekers Resource Centre: If you are or know of a refugee or asylum seeker who is in need of help and assistance, or if you're interested in volunteering with asylum seekers in any number of roles, this is the place to go.

Labels: human rights, refugees