Page 2702 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 2013
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
It is telling to have a quick look at what has been said about Papua New Guinea on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s smart traveller website: exercise a high degree of caution in Papua New Guinea because of the high levels of serious crime. There has been an increase in reported incidents of sexual assault, including gang rape, and foreigners have been targeted. Malaria is a risk throughout Papua New Guinea. Cholera is now considered as endemic in PNG. Food-borne, water-borne and other infectious diseases, including typhoid and hepatitis, are common. Medical evacuation to Australia, costing between several thousand dollars to $80,000 dollars, depending on the circumstances, is often the only option for serious illnesses or accidents. All those statements form publically available advice that the federal government feels is appropriate to provide to our own citizens, to Australians heading overseas. Is this the right environment for vulnerable, often traumatised asylum seekers?
The current approach by the old parties is just wrong—it will inflict even more cruelty on refugees, it will cost many innocent lives, and it will cost billions of dollars. Australia under the old parties has lost its way, because there are other options. In the past week my federal colleagues in the Australian Greens released their refugee policy which provides a different approach—a regional response that is humane, legal and effective. The Australian Greens plan for giving refugees a safe pathway to a better life includes: increasing Australia's humanitarian intake to 30,000; within that, resettling an emergency intake of 10,000 UNHCR-assessed refugees from our region to reduce the backlog; including at least 3,800 directly from our immediate region, including Indonesia, as recommended by the Houston panel; an additional $70 million per year in emergency funding for safe assessment centres in Indonesia to provide shelter and welfare services to refugees while they wait for assessment and resettlement; boosting the capacity of the UNHCR in Indonesia and Malaysia to speed up assessment and resettlement; and shutting down all offshore detention in Nauru and Papua New Guinea, with Australia to assess the claims of people who arrive by boat.
Some might baulk at the money, particularly when I talked about an additional $70 million per year, but compared to the cost of what Australia is spending on the response that has been put forward by the current federal government, it is really a bargain, and that is simply on the costs of it, let alone the decency and the humanity of it.
The other part of the Greens plan is that there should be a policy of no children in detention in Australia or offshore. This is a particularly important point. It is crucial that our refugee response be a genuine regional arrangement, founded on compassion, practicality, cost effectiveness and our international legal obligations under the refugee convention, a response that will save lives by giving people safer options than leaky boats and by treating all refugees with humanity and fairness in Australia.
I am not under any illusions as to the impact the ACT government can have on the hardline policymakers, but I cannot believe that a city like Canberra can support such callous proposals. We in the ACT have a strong track record of compassionate, intelligent policy responses to the difficult and complex issues of the day. To date, the ACT government has displayed these qualities by welcoming and supporting refugees
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video