This week Labor MP Andrew Theophanous called for all refugees who have been in detention more than 18 months to be freed.
The call highlights several developments in Australia’s immigration policy. For a start, the historic positions of the major parties have now been reversed. Early this century Labor was anti-immigration because it feared a migrant influx would create cheap labour and its voters — the white working class — would have to cop lower wages.
Then after World War II both parties were pro-immigration. Soon the migrant population formed a large part of the lower wage earners and became Labor voters. Labor took an interest in their concerns — one of which was family reunion and more migrants from their home countries. Add to this is the post-Whitlam educated Labor view — racial equality, diversity, civil rights etc. — and Labor becomes the migration party. The Hawke and Keating Governments had far higher migrant intakes than the Howard Government.
The conservatives, meanwhile, are no longer proponents of importing cheap labour to feed the capitalists’ factories, for the simple reason that the factories are not longer here. Indeed, the capitalists have moved the factories to the labour rather than the labour to the factories. And it is the Howard Government — not a Labor Government — that capitalises on the working-class battlers’ cry of jobs being taken by cheap migrant labour.
So this leaves us with a Government tough on immigration and a tough immigration Minister, in Philip Ruddock.
Into this changed political climate arrive a greatly increased number of boat people. It results in the polarisation of views fuelled by politicians serving their constituencies. Putting a balanced view is difficult.
What has been the nature of the increase in boat people this year? And what should be done about it?
Several points should be made.
It is significant, but it is not swamping the country. We should be concerned but not alarmed.
The new arrivals are unlike earlier boat people in several respects: their place of origin, the way they get here, their intentions on arrival.
They are mainly from the Middle East (Iran and Afghanistan). They have come in larger boats than the Indo-Chinese in the 1970s and 1980s and the Chinese earlier this decade and are better organised. They are not seeking to sneak in and work illegally. Rather their aim is to hit the Australian coast and immediately announce their presence and seek refugee status. They are also mostly genuine refugees, if fairly well-heeled ones. But no matter what their apparent wealth, they cannot return to their homelands.
Those on the compassionate, let-them-all-come side of the argument say the boat arrivals are a drop in the ocean (pardon the pun); they are desperate and deserve compassion; our position is not as bad as the US or Canada; we are affluent and should help; boat people not a problem real problem is overstayers and air arrivals.
Those on the send-them-home side argue: they are queue-jumpers so it is unfair; they are only economic refugees; we will be swamped; they cost too much.
Some of these arguments are sound. Others are furphies.
Let’s go to some facts.
The large increase in boat arrivals: 3123 from January 1 to December 6, 1999. There were only 200 in 1998 and 339 in 1997.
The drop from 1997 to 1998 is significant. It indicates that Ruddock’s work in China had some effect. He is right to do some work in the Middle East to tell people there that a boat trip to Australia means detention and repatriation.
The large increase in boat people now means illegal arrivals by boat outstrip those by air by three to two. In 1998-99 2106 illegals arrived by air. The previous two years it was 1550 and 1347 respectively. Note the significant rise in illegals by air. Note the lack of public fuss about it. There are no dramatic photos of boats, like the one accompanying this article. There is no sense of invasion.
But the increase in boat arrivals to overtake air arrivals is of concern. Illegal air arrivals present less of a problem. Three-quarters of illegal air arrivals in 1998-99 were put back on a plane within 72 hours. Airlines have an obligation to ensure travellers have correct documents and can be liable for return journeys. More significantly, it is far easier to turn around someone at an airport than turn around a boat arrival. A boat arrival usually has to be rescued and taken to a detention centre. And once a boat arrival goes into detention they get access to other refugees, refugee associations and lawyers, and the appeal process starts.
Overstayers form the bulk of illegals. The departmental official figure is a total of 53,143 overstayers in Australia, but the real figure is double that because about 50,000 overstayers have been given temporary visas. Last financial year 13,472 were found and 8308 were deported, some of whom had been in Australia for many years. Virtually none of those caught were linked to smuggling in boat people. So we can fairly assume that we are catching all the illegal boat arrivals. We are not being swamped by unknown, unseen numbers of boat people.
The most recent 100 processed in the recent batch reveals they are genuine refugees and cannot go home. But the boat are still queue jumping from refugee centres overseas because the Government notionally each year sets aside 2000 of the 12,000 humanitarian places for them.
We don’t have the problems of the US and Canada. The US has five million illegals, growing by 275,000 a year and costing $6 billion, each of those figures is more than treble the Australian figure per head. But this is a reason for Australia to remain fairly tough on boat people. The US and Canada are getting tougher, so we are seen as a softer option. And the cost of boat people is very high. We are spending $200 million a year on finding, detaining and removing illegals and the boat people are the most expensive. If we do not do information campaigns overseas and if we do not detain boat people we will be seen to be more attractive and our orderly immigration program will be put in jeopardy.
(Sources: Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs fact sheets. Parliamentary Library Current Issues Brief 13 on boat people by Adrienne Millbank. Both on websites.)