Refugees in Australia: It has been good for our past and it will be good for our future

I was asked would I speak at a rally about refugees and I readily agreed.  But before you make too many assumptions and think I am going to lay it all at the feet of the present Coalition government let me say that I believe both sides of politics have got this one badly wrong.

“It has not been easy for organised world opinion in the United Nations or elsewhere to act directly in respect of some of the dreadful events which have driven so many people from their own homes and their own fatherland, but at least we can in the most practical fashion show our sympathy for those less fortunate than ourselves who have been the innocent victims of conflicts and upheavals of which in our own land we have been happy enough to know nothing.

It is a good thing that Australia should have earned a reputation for a sensitive understanding of the problems of people in other lands; that we should not come to be regarded as people who are detached from the miseries of the world.

I know that we will not come to be so regarded, for I believe that there are no people anywhere with warmer hearts and more generous impulses. This appeal therefore, is at one and the same time a challenge and an opportunity.” Prime Minister Robert Menzies – Broadcast by the Prime Minister for the Opening of World Refugee Year in Australia (27 September 1959) 

Since 1945, Australia has welcomed over 7.5 million migrants, of whom some 800,000 were accepted for a range of humanitarian reasons (including, but not limited to, being a refugee under the 1951 Refugee Convention).

In general, these migrants and humanitarian entrants have become part of Australia’s multicultural society with very little disharmony in the community.

I would like to think that most Australians want our government to do what is right not just what is popular but with the rabid right wing press constantly stoking the fires of racism and fear of difference it will be a brave party that will stand up and go against the current trend.

The Tampa was a pivotal moment in Australian politics I believe.  John Howard saw electoral advantage in demonising the people who had been picked up at sea and right then Kim Beazley blinked.  It’s been all downhill since then.

Australia has a mixed history with respect to refugees and strangers coming to our shores.  We have seen the best and the worst and right now we are definitely plumbing new depths.  When we take some people from a boat and transfer them to a naval ship of the country from which they were fleeing and have them returned where they are arrested for illegally leaving the country we are behaving without any compassion and almost certainly in breach of our international humanitarian obligations.  When we take another 150 or so and imprison them in an Australian Customs vessel for an extended period we are acting like criminals.

Can I remind the Minister that more politicians have been charged with offences in the last 3 years than have asylum seekers.

So let’s have a look at some history to see where we have come from and try to see how we’ve arrived at the state we are in today.

I will start with a story directly related to Albury and remind you that we have had an exhibition in the Library Museum about this family.  We are rightly proud of what they achieved here.

Mr Saad Abikhair left his home near Beirut in what is now Lebanon, driven out by religious tensions and he arrived here in 1895.  Many other Lebanese came in that period and became hawkers and traders around country NSW.  We have the wonderful legacy of the Abikhairs and the Batrouneys here in Albury.  People who made a new home here, worked hard, married and had families.  People who contributed much to our economy and to the culture of our country.

Think of the past Governor of NSW Dame Marie Bashir the daughter of Lebanese parents.  She graduated in medicine and made a major contribution to many aspects of the state.  Her husband Nicholas Shehadie, also the son of Lebanese parents who played rugby for Australia.  Haven’t they made wonderful contributions.

But the first signs of a fearful Australia appeared with the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 which limited migrants to those of European background – the White Australia Policy.  We welcomed Greeks and Italians who worked on some of our most important infrastructure such as the Snowy Mountains scheme.

Bonegilla stands as a testament to our willingness to take in people affected by the horrors of war.  Between 1947 and 1971 we took in over 300,000 people from more than 50 countries.  We took in Germans and Dutch, Poles and Czechs, Italians and Yugoslavs.  They stayed in the camp for a short period then went out and worked to make their way in their new homeland.

We have welcomed Chinese and Vietnamese, Indians and Thais and more recently refugees from Afghanistan, various African countries and now the Bhutanese come to Albury Wodonga after 20 or more years in refugee camps in Nepal.  We have come to love their food and their culture and we are the richer for it.  And we know how hard they work.  I know of Bhutanese families who came here less than 5 years ago with nothing.  Today through hard work and determination they have saved enough to place a deposit on a house.  We shouldn’t be worried about them, we should admire them

So why are we so scared of the latest people escaping bloodshed and war, torture and persecution.  Are we worried that they are terrorists or will take our jobs and consume our welfare.  At a time when we cut our foreign aid budgets and help the military in places such as Sri Lanka, when we go to war in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, why are we surprised that people want to leave those countries and come here to be safe.

And it is not good policy.  If you are worried about the costs of asylum seekers consider this.  At a rough estimate, and without accounting for administrative expenses, the cost of providing 89% of the Centrelink benefit to 19,000 asylum seekers runs to more than $4 million per week.  Even if only half of them managed to find jobs, granting these asylum seekers work rights could save taxpayers more than $100 million per year.  In addition, those who did find work would be contributing to government revenue by paying taxes and would become less frequent users of other government services, including Medicare.

Offshore processing costs Australian taxpayers 10 times more than letting asylum seekers live in the community while their refugee claims are processed, the Commission of Audit’s report reveals.  This is Mr Abbot’s Commission of Audit so I hope they won’t argue about the figures I am using.

It costs $400,000 a year to hold an asylum seeker in offshore detention, $239,000 to hold them in detention in Australia, and less than $100,000 for an asylum seeker to live in community detention.   In contrast, it is around $40,000 for an asylum seeker to live in the community on a bridging visa while their claim is processed.

The Commission of Audit’s report shows that in the past four years, the Australian government has increased spending on the detention and processing of asylum seekers who arrive by boat by 129 per cent each year. Costs have skyrocketed from $118.4 million in 2009–10 to $3.3 billion in 2013–14.

This is the fastest growing government program and projected costs over the forward estimates amount to more than $10 billion.

Then we cut our foreign aid budget by $7.6 billion over the next 5 years.  Do we think that will help some of the countries where our asylum seekers come from?  Places of poverty and desperation.  This is mean, short sighted thinking.

But that’s not we are told by the government and most of the media!

We are lied to by our politicians and scared by the media but we need to seize the agenda and tell our politicians, all of them, what we want.  We want to be a fair and compassionate country and do our bit to solve the humanitarian problems of the world.

It has been good for us in the past and we need to open our arms once again and welcome those in need.

My final word is to remind you that the next Governor of South Australia is a boat person – Hieuw Van Le from Vietnam!  Nothing more to be said.

Do you think we need to open our arms again? Do you think that we need to stop the “boat person” mentality? Tell us in the comments below…