Page 2701 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 2013
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I present this motion today because I believe Australia has lost its way on refugee policy. The federal government’s new approach to asylum seekers is a national disgrace and represents a new low in a race to the bottom of lowest-common-denominator politics. Turning our back on those in need, refusing them the right to ever live in Australia and instead forcing them to live in one of the poorest countries in the region is no way for a prosperous and humane country such as ours to act.
Unfortunately, the reality is we live in a world where people continue to flee persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or their political opinion. Australia is a signatory to the UN convention on refugees. The convention was drafted after WWII in response to the refusal of many nations to take in Jewish refugees escaping the Holocaust. It was designed to ensure no country ever again turns its back on vulnerable people fleeing persecution.
Under the convention Australia has certain obligations to asylum seekers who are in our jurisdiction and in our nation’s territory. They have rights under the convention, regardless of whether or not we have processed their claim or recognised their refugee status. How can we as a nation withdraw from our obligations? How can we in all good conscience close our borders to vulnerable people who need our protection? To walk away from our obligations will damage our international reputation, undermine the international protection regime and leave many vulnerable people without protection.
What Australia is experiencing is but a small part of a global problem. It is an international humanitarian problem; not a war, not a national emergency, not a border security crisis. To illustrate this point, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported that in 2012, 83,400 people claimed refugee status in the United States, nearly 65,000 claims were made in Germany, nearly 55,000 claims were made in France, and in that time Australia had 15,800 applications for asylum. It is a very stark contrast, given the level of media and political discourse taking place on the issue in Australia.
The people who are drowning at sea are fleeing persecution. Deterrence and cruelty have never been an effective or sustainable way of responding to refugees who come by boat. Australia will never be able to deter asylum seekers who are fleeing threats as dangerous and brutal as the Taliban. People will keep coming in in an irregular manner while there are limited regular pathways available to them.
We know Nauru and Manus Island are no place for traumatised refugees, especially children. The UNHCR has consistently reported that conditions in the detention camps are harsh, cramped, hot, unhygienic, tantamount to arbitrary detention, inconsistent with international human rights standards and lead to deteriorating mental health. We know neither Papua New Guinea nor Nauru currently has the capacity to assess protection claims or give refugee families the safe future they are entitled to seek. We also know our neighbours in Papua New Guinea are already struggling with poverty, health and social problems.
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