David Mann’s article identifies the poverty of thinking in Gillard’s recent announcement of refugees arriving by boat. He points out that the so-called regional framework is hollow rhetoric and the “new” policy is remarkable similar to Howard’s infamous Pacific solution.
It is clear that Gillard’s policy is an appeal to voters worried about the prospect of a rising tide of refugees arriving by boat yet it seems odd that this article and the debate generally ignores a couple of salient realities which, if acknowledged, have broader implications for public policy.
Obviously the boats arriving on our northern border carry people hopeful of a better life. Who can blame them? Australia’s wealth and size compare very favourably to anywhere else in the world. Strangely we admit this fact in the glossy advertising campaigns designed to lure tourists here but somehow fail to connect the advertised image with how that might appeal to potential refugees.
If Australia wasn’t such a great place then tourism campaigns like this would never see the light of day.
Nor would refugees desperate for a better life, spend their life savings to procure passage with parasitic people smugglers.
The debate needs to move forward. We need to acknowledge the wealth and appeal of Australia. We also need to acknowledge the reality of the world north of Darwin. Asia is the most populated landmass in the world and one beset by a host of regional conflicts. The people who want to escape this genuinely want to have a better life for themselves and for their families.
The current political policy is deliberately aimed at discouraging such immigrants by making the prospect of settlement in Australia difficult and uncertain. While it might work in the short term it ignores the medium and longer term where the pressures on those people to our north will increase. India, for example is forecast to overtake China as the most populous nation. Climate change has yet to significantly impact the ecologies of Asia but if the worst case scenarios are right then the potential for refugees is unimaginable.
There is a eerie sense of deja vu about this debate. As was the case twenty years ago when Australia could have embarked on an aggressive program to harness its abundant solar energy potential and now reap the much reduced carbon pollution benefit (not to mention developing an export industry and creating a sustainable energy economy), today’s debate on immigration completely ignores the distinct possibility that Australia may well be overrun by immigrants in the medium to long term.
It seems sensible to deal with the minuscule number of refugees who peacefully want to build a better life here in Australia in a humane and friendly manner. How we treat our new migrants will inculcate them with values of what it is to be Australian and in so doing create a stronger and more robust Australia. Unfortunately for the Gillards and Abbotts of this world, the rest of the world, and especially our northern neighbours, may well be forced to ignore the niceties of international conventions. Short of arming the thousands of kilometres that is our northern frontier we need to admit this obvious fact into our domestic debates.
Gillard and her supporters are actually doing the long term interests of Australia a massive disservice by focussing on punitive short term solutions. Furthermore they are doing so because their long term vision is bereft of any considerations of where such short sighted policies may take us. As is the case with coal and green power where today’s utter dependence on fossil fuel is locked in thus producing a lifestyle and an economy that perpetuates unhappiness and inequality, so to the short term politics of immigration ignores the broader picture and long term view.
But then that’s what passes for politics in this country.
