i am instrumental (for intrinsic ends): Asylum seekers in Australian political discourse

The media and politicians increasingly focus on the issue of ‘boat people’ and ways of ‘stemming the tide’ of arrivals. While such arguments are often framed as campaigns as part of the battle against ‘people smugglers’, what do they reveal about the general trend of ‘criminalizing migration’ in our ‘securitized’ world?

Immigration and asylum has been politicised to the point where the politics of fear trumps our moral values in human rights. Security issues surrounding those seeking asylum, while important, tend to be derived from reactionary politics. Unfounded fears of a large number of asylum seekers claiming excessive Centrelink benefits and ‘ripping-off’ tax payers have been spread by Channel Nine News, Howard Sattler, and Alan Jones[1]. These fears have caused Australians to be less concerned with the plight of asylum seekers and how our government treats them. To add fuel to the flame of apathy, the Australian government has ensured that ‘no humanising images of asylum-seekers’ are to be shown to the Australian public[2]. This essay reviews the human cost of mandatory detention in conjunction with a hostile attitude towards those attempting to seek asylum on our shores. The ‘Children Overboard’ affair is just one event in a series of challenges in regards to immigration that Australia has faced. The Australian government’s reaction to the situation has displayed firsthand fear that is entrenched in public sentiment towards people arriving unannounced on our shores. This essay will contrast the political response to asylum seekers with the human face of the issue.

‘It was during the night. We didn’t know which way the shooting was going but the shooting was too much. [I was] vomiting, very scary, very sick and my daughter … too; my daughter very vomiting’.

These were the words of Ali Alsaai who was on board the Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel 4 (SIEV 4) [3]. This vessel carried 223 people, 76 of whom were children. On October 7, 2001, in the early hours of the morning, shots were fired in the water to deter SIEV 4 from proceeding towards Christmas Island[4]. The SIEV 4 had ignored several warnings from HMAS Adelaide asking the SIEV to turn back towards Indonesia. These requests were delivered in written and spoken form, and in ‘English, Bahasa and Arabic’ according to the Senate enquiry into the Children Overboard affair[5]. However, repeated requests for the SIEV to turn back towards Indonesia were ignored. Unaware of the heated political situation they were entering into, the passengers of SIEV 4 were in the unfavourable circumstances of being intercepted by HMAS Adelaide less than 24 hours after then Prime Minister, John Howard, had called an election.

‘We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. And can I say on this point what a fantastic job Philip Ruddock has done for Australia’[6].

Only three weeks after SIEV 4 was shot at, Prime Minister, John Howard, fiercely asserted these words, soon to shape the slogan, ‘stop the boats’. When boat arrivals peaked in 1999, immigration minister Mr Ruddock described situation as ‘an assault on our borders’ to the scale of ‘a national emergency’[7]. The ‘fantastic job’ that Philip Ruddock had done was to create a sense of fear, appealing to public interest, in a bid to secure votes. This fear eventually led to John Howard being re-elected into the Australian parliament. Whether Mr Ruddock had done a ‘fantastic job’ for Australia, or whether he had done a ‘fantastic job’ for Mr Howard in preparing him for victory seems ambiguous. What is clear however, is that the Liberal government had not won a victory for human rights. This environment of cheap political victories ignored the human face of the asylum seeker crisis.

‘We could see their faces and the screaming was just horrific. They were yelling, ‘Help us!’ and, at one point, it was more deafening than the 50-calibre machine gun’[8].

These were the cold words of Able Seaman Laura Whittle who was on board the HMAS Adelaide as she fired shots towards SIEV 4. The task of her ship was to keep SIEVs out of Australian waters. Whittle admits that she was, at this stage, ‘not thinking about them as people’ and ‘largely indifferent to the asylum seekers’ fates’[9]. However, Whittle’s views were abruptly challenged when she saw a man holding his young daughter in his arms[10]. ‘It just made my heart melt’, Whittle recalled, ‘it was like the father was saying to our guys in the inflatable rafts, ‘take her, take her’ … it was then that I moved out of work mode and the humanity began to kick in’[11]. Whittle then thought, ‘how could somebody be so desperate to do something like this, to head towards the unknown with their children on a rickety boat and to put everything at risk? They must have been coming from something terrible and it made me think, this isn’t right, this isn’t how things should be’[12]. Prime Minister, John Howard, was adamant that children were thrown overboard and that he ‘certainly doesn’t want people of that type in Australia’[13]. However, Whittle saw no children being thrown overboard, and nor did anyone else for that matter[14]. Whittle’s account of the events of October 7, 2001, provide a valuable insight into the void between reality and populous politics.

‘During my visit to immigration detention centres in Darwin, I saw the grim despondency of asylum seekers waiting months and in some cases well over a year to be released. These people who arrive with such relief and hope after experiencing trauma in their home countries, should not be treated this way’[15]

Navi Pillay, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights during her recent visit to Australia in May 2011, argued that we should not be treating asylum seekers in the way that we currently do. In an interview on ABC’s PM she called on the ‘leaders of all Australia’s political parties’, asking them to ‘take a principled and courageous stand to break the ingrained political habit of demonising asylum seekers’[16]. Unfortunately, this was a very idealistic ask of Australian political culture, as Kevin Rudd’s attempt at ‘humanely’ treating asylum seekers was a factor in his downfall. In Rudd’s bid to gain power leading up to the 2007 election, he wrote an essay ‘Faith in Politics’, outlining his perspective on how these subjects are interrelated. He wrote ‘the biblical injunction to care for the stranger in our midst is clear. The parable of the Good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst’[17]. Journalist Robert Manne commented in 2008 that Rudd’s asylum seeker policy was ‘morally admirable but politically perilous’[18]. Rudd would in turn pay a heavy price for his ‘humanitarian stance’ on asylum seekers as it was viewed as a loss of control of our borders. Julian Burnside QC, in 2002, argued that mandatory detention was a ‘breach of our obligations under international conventions’. However, in the nine years since this statement was reported, attempts by former Prime Minister Rudd and others seem to have done little to aid the situation[19].

‘She’d tied a sheet to the ceiling, swallowed a bottle of shampoo, then put her head in the makeshift noose. When the guards managed to break the door down, her parents and seven-year-old brother found her lying in a sea of vomit, her face translucent with death.’[20]

The story of Amy, at only nine years of age, is the horrifying result of mandatory and indefinite detention in Australia. Repeated recommendations were issued for Amy’s immediate release, including one from an ‘expert psychiatrist’. However, these recommendations were ignored. Mr Ruddock also ignored an urgent child protection notification asking the government to grant Amy and her family temporary protection visas. Amy’s family were part of a persecuted Christian minority fleeing from their country. Her father was escaping execution on fabricated charges, managing to ‘bribe his way out of prison, sell the family’s entire belongings and pay people smugglers to get them to Indonesia’[21]. It has been suggested that Australia’s detention system has been ‘designed to induce mental trauma’[22]. For Amy, and many other detainees, this seemed to be the case. Amy’s story was reported less than a year after former Prime Minister John Howard congratulated Philip Ruddock on the ‘fantastic job’ he was doing for Australia. In another case, a World Vision employee, Amin Jan Amin, was locked up in detention on Nauru. According to refugee Sajjad Sarwari, Nauru is not even worthy of being called a detention centre. He described Nauru as a ‘hellhole’ and expressed his concern for those who are still there to a reporter from The Age[23]. Tim Costello, on the day he became chief executive officer of World Vision Australia, wrote to the immigration minister confirming Amin’s identity and his good character as described by his AusAid program manager. It was not until several months later Amin Jan Amin was released from Nauru and issued a temporary protection visa[24]. The inhumane treatment of Amin Jan Amin, as well as Amy and her family are the sickening consequences of populous politics. It is important to note that both Amin Jan Amin and Amy considered themselves to be Christian, in some ways ‘like us’ (or more ‘like us’ than other immigrants), and yet, they were still treated inhumanely. Amy was a child, at just nine years old, while Amin Jan Amin was a fondly remembered World Vision employee, yet still these attributes were not enough. It leaves one wondering how bleak seeking refuge in Australia must look for those who are of other faiths, those who are of age, and those who don’t work for internationally respected non-government organisations (NGOs). In attempt to ‘criminalise’ migration we have put hand-cuffs on the vulnerable and marginalised.

‘There is an undeniable linkage between illegals and terrorists’[25]

Peter Slipper, a Liberal Party MP, asserted this statement only weeks before an anti-terrorist squad was sent onto SIEV 4 (‘Children Overboard’). However, Adrian D’Hage, a former defence official saw the situation differently: ‘It is not a matter of national security when asylum seekers are picked up. These are unarmed civilians’, he told ABC’s Lateline[26]. William Maley, the director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, also disagreed with Peter Slipper. Maley suggests that it is ‘relatively’, perhaps even ‘absurdly’ easier to enter Australia on a tourist visa rather than on a boat. Willy Brigitte, a French passport holder with terrorist ties did not travel on a leaky boat to Australia, but rather, he came by plane on a tourist visa[27]. However, the fear of a terrorist slipping through the nets is still rife in Australia.

‘If I talk to an Australian I will ask this question, ‘You are a citizen of this country, you are its conscience. You teach your children respect of human rights and to support civil rights. Please treat others, as you would like to be treated.’[28]

It is clear that our ‘tough stance’ on those seeking asylum, especially those who come on boats, is derivative of fear which has been invented by particular individuals and groups in order to satisfy their self-interest. Our policies on asylum seekers are sometimes developed in the name of ‘humanitarianism’, aimed at taking a hard line approach to people smugglers by locking up the victims. The so-called ‘security threat’ that asylum seekers present has been shown in this essay to be a political convenience rather than a truthful claim.

Bibliography

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Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2004, August 18, 2004. 6:53pm (AEST)). "Navy gunner breaks silence on SIEV IV." Retrieved May 28, 2011, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200408/s1179280.htm.

Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2011). "UN commissioner still critical of Malaysia deal." Retrieved May 26, 2011, from http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3226895.htm.

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Gordon, M. (2005). Freeing Ali : the human face of the Pacific solution. Sydney, University of New South Wales Press.

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