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When the bodies of asylum seekers en route to Australia washed up on the shores of Christmas Island in 2010 everyone was in agreement that something needed to be done.
Five years later Australia has implemented one of the harshest border policies in the world. It is characterised by three core points: turning or towing back boats of asylum seekers at sea; forcing asylum seekers to live in detention centres across the Pacific in Nauru and Papua New Guinea; and guaranteeing they will never be resettled in Australia.
Dozens of would-be migrants are reported to have drowned between Libya and Sicily, the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean this spring. The increasing numbers making the perilous journey on overloaded boats has brought the issue of migration into Europe to a head. But what can be done about it?
Prime minister Tony Abbott is now making a clarion call to Europe, where crisis meetings have taken place following the deaths of over 800 migrants in the Mediterranean this week. The only way to stop deaths at sea, he told reporters this week, “is in fact, to stop the boats”.
The public debate around immigration in Australia is by no means the same as it is in Europe. But it provides a useful roadmap for how outrage at deaths at sea, and fears of irregular migration, can turn the question from “why are people fleeing?” to “how can we stop the boats?”.
Australia’s immigration debate began at a similar point to the current crisis facing Europe. Five years ago, boats were coming, mostly from Indonesia – a transit country to where asylum seekers travelled from as far away as Iraq or Afghanistan in an attempt to enter Australia – and more were coming than had ever come before.
Harrowing deaths at sea were also growing more frequent, as they are now growing in the Mediterranean, although the numbers of arrivals to Australia have never reached the levels attempting to come to Europe. Immigration detention centres inside Australia were full, and riots and serious self-harm incidents had taken place.
The previous Labor government was panicked. It was taking heavy hits from Australia’s conservative party, the Liberals, over what was seen as a failure to secure Australia’s borders. Then prime minister Julia Gillard formed an expert panel in 2012 to address how Australia should respond.
The
panel recommended the creation of a vast regional framework to
manage asylum seeker and migration flows in a comprehensive review
of Australia’s policy. It suggested the creation of an incentivised
scheme in which asylum seekers would have a clear and structured
path to get to Australia from regional hubs such as Malaysia,
and suggested an increase in Australia’s overall humanitarian
intake and more lenient family visa access.But in order to achieve
the desired outcome the panel saw that deterrents needed to be
in place to manage the flow of asylum-seeker vessels. It recommended
the reopening of the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres.
It also endorsed – in some circumstances when strict conditions
were met – the practice of turning back asylum-seeker boats.Although
the panel may have been well intentioned, it was mostly the deterrent
parts of the report that were implemented. The government reopened
Manus Island and Nauru, which were fraught with problems. The
idea of a truly regional solution, with a real process for asylum
seekers to enter Australia without making the hazardous journey,
fell largely to pieces with an ill-fated deal with Malaysia to
turn the country into a regional settlement hub.
When Abbott’s government took power in September 2013 it
pushed the tactics of deterrence even further – in fact,
this was a central platform on which it sought to be elected.
No asylum seeker who arrived by boat could ever be resettled in
Australia. They would be taken straight to Manus Island and Nauru,
where a series of reports have found serious health and safety
issues. It turned back asylum-seeker boats at sea to Indonesia,
and even purchased orange lifeboats to ferry back asylum seekers
when their own boats were too damaged. In this 2014 video, the
Australian government said it was ‘implementing the toughest
border protection measures ever to combat maritime people smuggling’.
The
CEO of the Refugee Council of Australia, Paul Power, has described
it as a policy that is “actually all about forcing people
back in the direction that they’ve come”.He added: “The
Australian policy at no point has taken account of the need for
protection of people who are attempting to come to Australia by
boat. That’s never been a serious part of the discussion
from politicians in Australia.”But the policy did largely
stem the flow of asylum-seeker vessels to Australia. Since the
government came to power, only 16 boats have made the journey
to Australia. Only one has been successful. No deaths have been
reported.
However, information about asylum-seeker vessel movements is considered
a matter of national security.
Australia’s approach to immigration has now drawn inevitable comparisons with the current problems faced in the Mediterranean. Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s right-wing Ukip party, has warned of “waves of millions of people” coming from north Africa to Europe.
But there are many differences that make comparisons exceedingly difficult. Australia’s migration stream of vessels were also mostly from Indonesia, which is generally seen as a transit country via which asylum seekers from Iran, Afghanistan, Syria and other countries travel en route to Australia.
The flow across the Mediterranean from Africa – and in particular Libya, which has become a hub for people-smuggling ventures – are in some circumstances from asylum seekers directly fleeing persecution.
Paul Barrett, a former secretary of Australia’s defence department, said turning back asylum-seeker vessels to Libya was far different from turning them back to Indonesia.
“One immediate difference is that when we turn back boats to Indonesia, objectionable as that policy is, we know the Indonesians aren’t going to shoot them when they come back,” he said.
“If they’ve fled Iraq or Afghanistan they’ve got no rights in Indonesia, so they need to move on to a country where they can retain the benefit of the Refugee convention.
