By Julian Burnside
We do not need to be protected from asylum seekers: they need to be protected from their persecutors.
Julia Gillard wants an open debate about refugee policy. Good thing, but let the debate start with the facts. So far this year, just 3500 people seeking asylum have arrived by boat in Australia. That is a very small number. If it keeps up at this rate, it would take about 20 years to fill the MCG with boat arrivals. We receive about 240,000 migrants each year, so one year of asylum seekers arriving by boat is equivalent to about one week of new migrants. We aren't being flooded.
Illustration: Andrew Dyson
''Border protection'' is a misleading term. We do not need to be protected from asylum seekers: they need to be protected from their persecutors.
Border control is a legitimate concern, but is irrelevant to the discussion. About 4 million people arrive in Australia each year by orthodox means: they come for business, holidays, study and so on. If 5000 a year arrive without prior authority, it is absurd to suggest that we have ''lost control'' of our borders. Our borders are close to watertight.
Asylum seekers do not commit any offence by coming here. Under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights every person has the right to seek asylum in any territory they can reach.
Recent arrivals are mostly Hazaras from Afghanistan and Tamils from Sri Lanka. They are fleeing persecution. The Tamils from Sri Lanka are fleeing genocide.
The Hazaras are an ethnic minority who have been persecuted in Afghanistan for several centuries. They are Shiite Muslims. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims. In the past few weeks, Hazaras have been summarily executed in the streets by members of the Taliban. The Karzai government is either unwilling or unable to control the Taliban: that is why our troops are there.
When she was voted leader of the government, Julia Gillard said that she could understand anxiety in the public about boat arrivals. Given the scaremongering that Tony Abbott had been engaged in, she made a fair point. Once the facts are recognised, it is less easy to understand that anxiety.
Australia has signed the Refugees Convention. Indonesia has not. Asylum seekers who get to Indonesia live in perpetual fear of detection. In Indonesia, asylum seekers who are assessed as refugees may wait 10 or 15 years before they are offered a place in a third country. In the meantime they cannot get jobs and their children cannot go to school.
Not surprisingly, some of them - those with initiative and courage - place themselves in the hands of people smugglers and end up in Australia.
So the question is, what should Australia do with people who arrive here by boat seeking asylum? If we are to have an open debate on the matter, let people declare their positions. Recent responses range from shooting them out of the water as they approach, to welcoming them in with no questions asked.
I prefer a middle position. It is reasonable that they should be detained initially for identity, health and security checks. After that, they should be released into the community on conditions that will ensure that they remain available for processing and (if necessary) removal. They should be brought to the mainland. As recent experience in Leonora shows, there are plenty of regional and rural towns that are willing to receive them and stand to benefit from their arrival.
That is a very small number. If it keeps up at this rate, it would take about 20 years to fill the MCG with boat arrivals.
This approach is decent, humane, and consistent with our obligations under the Refugees Convention.
There are suggestions that the Gillard government will return Afghan asylum seekers to Afghanistan, with promises from the Karzai government to protect them. It is clear that the Karzai government cannot control the Taliban, and neither can America. Sending Hazaras back to Afghanistan would be tantamount to murder.
It is easy to forget that the Fraser government received about 25,000 Indochinese ''boat people'' each year, without a murmur from the community. A generation on, I doubt that many Australians would doubt the wisdom and decency of that policy. The main difference is that Fraser had bipartisan support. Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is willing to play political games with the lives of desperate, terrified people who have had the courage to flee for safety.
A consistent line of attack from Abbott is that every boat arrival reflects a failure of policy. In Abbott's world view, a perfect policy would keep refugees out of Australia. But that is in conflict with the purpose of the convention, which is to share the burden of refugees among all countries, rather than leaving them as a problem for countries next door to the trouble spots.
Some people reading this will think: ''Well, they should wait their turn.'' But what would you do?
If the roles were reversed, and you and your family faced persecution at the hands of the Taliban, would you queue up in Kabul for a decade or so waiting for another country to offer you protection?
Or would you run for your life, and do whatever it took to get to safety? I know I would run for safety. And if I got to a convention country, I would ask for protection.
Would you do any different? Can you blame others who run for their lives and ask for our help?
Julian Burnside is a barrister and a human rights advocate.