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Dear JTS
Excellent thoughts/questions you pose. What a HUGE subject, I'll try and abreviate, but forgive/tell me if this response is too long..
Australia's history of 'boat-people' goes back to the end of the Vietnam war. The precedence was set when thousands of cash-rich right-wing Vietnamese made a perilous journey here, and because of Australia's involvement & collective guilt in that war, were warmly accepted and assisted. For valid quarrantine reasons, their boats were burnt on the beach. In general, their contribution here has ranged from the positive (welcomed) through large enclaves (somewhat alienating, albeit human-nature) descending into unfathomable organised crime and heroin smuggling (what society needs that?)
Australia's a terrific country, many thousands of hopefulls wait patiently and legitimately for approval (eg my Dutch fiance) - some for years. Of note, about 30% of our population were born overseas, an incredible statistic, this puts strain on the still-extant 'anglo' culture, which has remarkably changed in my lifetime. We have a dearth of topsoil, and being the driest continent, only enough water to sustainably hold about 18 milllion people (current population 19m and growing).
To preface the 'Tampa situation', this form of 'migration' has been going on for some years. Mainly middle-class economic migrants from the Middle East (but some legit asylum seekers & a few criminals/paramilitary types thrown in) pass through many non-oppressive countries not to their liking and fly commercially & legally to Indonesia, then burn their passports/records and pay 'people smugglers' - (ie Organised Crime) for one-way passage on substandard one-way boats, then claim refugee asylum under the UN Charter. They burn their identity because most do not qualify for refugee status, and then use/abuse Australia's generous legal-aid to repeatedly appeal/progress through the Court system, thus delaying for years, in an attempt to stymie and exhaust the system. They are detained because, if released into the community, they do/will 'vanish'. Many carry TB, are not of good character etc. On average, each 'refugee' costs Australia A$1.5 million to process/assist.
What of the People Smugglers , those who control this trade? They issue special identification cards and deal with boatpeople in lots of 300. They are even taking Pakistanis into Afganistan and coaching them on how to lie about being persecuted by the Taliban!! Take Kais Abdul Al Rahim Asfoor, so brazen that he recently rang an Australian radio station declaring he was a people-smuggler for humanitarian reasons, operating for the good of his bretheren. Asfoor is known to have made A$25 million moving more than 2,000 people to Australia on 20 boats ... so far.
As to the minutae of the Tampa, as I understand it, Indonesia received the distress-call from the 'refugee' vessel, sent it through to Canberra, which then relayed the alert. Apparently this is normal procedure. After picking them up, the Tampa captain steamed for Indonesia (closest land) but was then later faced with threats of self-harm and/or mutiny by the suvivors, who insisted they be taken to Christmas Island (tiny Aust. atoll). Fearing loss of control, he then turned around for the island, which btw has no port big enough for the large Tampa.
Personally, from the above, I feel that escaping persecution was not the issue/goal for the 'asylum seekers', as they had already passed through many third countries, and had already escaped. The goal is economic, to bully their way through our immigration system and to emotively abuse/misuse the well meaning yet now naive UN laws, and signatories thereof, eg Australia . As our Prime Minister said: "These people are seeking to intimidate us with our own decency".
Here are 3 recent letters to the editor in local papers, which encapsulate some of the opinion here:
"Most of your correspondents have omitted to adress the practical issues that concern many Australians. Why don't the asylum-seekers seek asylum in countries closer to home, as many of their compatriots do? If they are willing to suicide to get into Australia, why aren't they willing to fight for better conditions in their own country? Why didn't they apply for asylum to Australia from Indonesia? I don't know either, and I don't know what should be done about those on the Tampa. But avoiding practical issues, glossing over questions that inhibit our carefully crafted arguments and idealism don't result in real solutions either".
"It took me almost three years to become a resident of Australia. After numerous medical exams, police checks, processing interviews and fees of well over $3,500, I was granted my visa to stay. My parents have been applying for a family visa for almost three years now, and have had to prove they have an overseas pension, which converts to roughly $44,000 a year to live on, $180,000 in the bank for a home here, and I have had to provide a bond of $5,000. It would have been so much easier to tell them to forget it and dress in their dirtiest clothes and head for Christmas Island"
...and this:
"Somewhere in the world, there are 438 people living in squalid refugee camps, who wait with patience and good grace for the Australian system to process their applications for asylum. These 438 are every bit as deserving, desperate and photogenic as those on the Tampa, but they lack the resources to pay the people smugglers. Next time you think the Government are racist, think about those 438 in the camps, and which way they would vote. Except no one speaks for them"
Amen
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