Australia must come up with a more humane plan to deal with boat people
Australia built a prosperous, multicultural society on the back of boatloads of hard-working migrants, including many poor refugees. In the post-war decades they arrived in ocean liners carrying thousands. A generation or two later, the current government has pledged to "stop the boats".
Australia built a prosperous, multicultural society on the back of boatloads of hard-working migrants, including many poor refugees. In the post-war decades they arrived in ocean liners carrying thousands. A generation or two later, the current government has pledged to "stop the boats". Nowadays, these are generally decrepit little vessels crammed with refugees and asylum seekers, who have paid unscrupulous opportunists for a perilous journey from Asian shores in hope of a new life. That is if they are not lost at sea. Untold numbers have perished.
Every country has the right to decide who can enter. Admittedly the "boat people" issue is socially divisive. But the lengths to which Australia has gone - by turning away boat people and negotiating deals with poor neighbours to take them - has outraged the international refugee lobby.
Having made good a pledge that "boat people" would not be settled in Australia, by transiting them indefinitely in grim holding camps in Papua New Guinea and in the Pacific island state of Nauru, the government has negotiated with Cambodia to resettle some in return for A$40 million (HK$270 million) over four years. The United Nations' view that this is a "worrying departure from international norms" is an understatement. The government is also legislating to sidestep international treaty obligations without regard for human rights violations.
It is true that many boat people are economic refugees. And the humanitarian aspect is two-sided. The stopping of the boats has effectively saved many from death and suffering and hurt the business of the so-called snakeheads, who profit from organising the boats and paying off corrupt local officials.
Rich countries like Australia are an easier mark for the refugee lobby than tackling the origins of the problem. At the same time, Australia can afford to shore up its moral position and safeguard its reputation by using its imagination to fashion a more humane legal immigration programme.