Maybe the get-tough plan with illegal immigrants is working. It is obviously coming at some human and political cost, but the figures reveal that illegal immigration by boat is down this year against last year. Last year 3720 people arrived illegally in Australia by small boat. This year 2500 have arrived. Whether this is can be put down to government policy having a deterrent or whether it would have happened anyway is anyone’s guess. Worse, it might be put down to the weather – in the past month 160 people drowned when two boats went missing. Other unknown boats might also have been lost.
The Government has come in for some fearsome criticism over its refugee policy in the past 18 months. The detention of illegal immigrants has a fair amount of support. However, the length of time of detention; the conditions of detention -both remoteness and harshness – and the fact that so many children and women are detained has caused great concern. About 270 children are in detention. Sometimes detention lasts for years. Heart-breaking.
It is probably true to say that a country like Australia should be able to absorb a couple of thousand boat people a year without resorting to detention. After all, we take about 100,000 immigrants a year. But we need to ask what might have happened without detention. A soft-touch Australia could have been targetted by more people-smugglers. And we would not be asked to absorb 3000, but 10,000. Change the response to the problem and you change the nature of the problem.
We know it is cruel, inhuman, undesirable etc to run a prison of 270 children. But this time last year Australia was facing a major increase and change in illegal immigration. It demanded a policy response. More refugees were coming from the Middle East rather than China and Indo-China; they were coming via Indonesia and landing at Ashmore reef; they were coming with more people per boat. All of this pointed to people smuggling. Further, the Middle East refugees, by and large, could not be persuaded to leave voluntarily nor be deported because no other country would have them. On the other hand, because of successful work with China, refugees from there could be deported. And that has been the pattern of boat refugees for the past two years: Asian refugees leave; Middle Eastern refugees stay in detention.
In 1998-99 just 920 boat people arrived in 42 boats – an average of 22 people per boat. In 1999-00 it has shot to 4315 in 78 boats – an average of 55 per boat. That is more evidence of people smuggling – an enterprise that stacks many people on a boat rather than a small-time escape from communism organised by the people doing the escaping.
It seems that work by the department and its Minister Phillip Ruddock in China is now paying off. Landings in eastern Australia from China have all but dried up. Moreover, it appears that the automatic-return policy has been a deterrent. This is good news, but if true, it might mean that the refugee problem from the Middle East has not slowed despite a drop in the overall number between calendar 1999 and calendar 2000.
A comparison between the second half of 1999 with the second half of 2000 is illuminating. Refugees tend to concentrate in the second half of the year. From July 1 1999 to December 30, 1999, 2881 illegal immigrants arrived on 51 boats. In the same period in 2000, the number dropped to 1317 in just 19 boats. The trend looks better than it is. The average number of people per boat has gone up from 56 to 70 and the number of boats landing at (or picked up very near) Ashmore islands (the favoured destination of people smugglers) has remained about the same – 19 and 18. Clearly more work as to be done at source (as with China). That helps both prevention of people leaving and quick voluntary departure.
Forced quick departure is not an option, despite popular clamouring. Australia has international legal obligations. Moreover, this year the High Court made it clear that if necessary, the High Court itself would give every refugee a fair hearing if the Government could not organise it another way.
In conclusion, the 2000 figures look better that 1999. Automatic detention might have helped. Simplistic solutions like send them all back now or let them all in now without conditions are not helpful. No policy solution is going to be perfect. It is clear that people smuggling is continuing given the higher number of people per boat and the higher proportion of boats landing at Ashmore (the closest practicable landing to Indonesia) and changes to today’s unpalatable policy have to be weighed against giving ourselves an even greater problem with even more unpalatable solutions later – preferably without pandering to fear and red-neckism.
Even so, compared to other countries Australia has a very small refugee problem. Only 9400 have arrived by boat in the past 10 years and only 7000 by air in the past five years. Compare this to the hundreds of thousands who cross borders in other parts of the world and we can count ourselves lucky. Still, it is better to work harder to stop illegals, particularly people smuggling, so more can be done to help legal refugees.