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This time, concern didn’t work. When mass textual content messages on election day warned voters of an “unlawful boat making an attempt to achieve Australia”, these had been known as out as a cynical, determined act. And the election outcomes counsel they didn’t flip the meant political trick. Australians voted for higher, fairer.
A profitable refugee coverage not solely manages nationwide borders: it additionally protects individuals who want security. Our current welcoming of Ukrainian refugees – eligible for instant safety for 3 years, with out even needing to use for a particular visa – stands in stark distinction to the deterrence, deflection and delaying ways which have been the hallmark of Australia’s method over the previous twenty years.
Final week, I had the privilege of showing on a panel with Abbas Nazari, who was seven years outdated when he and his household, fleeing the Taliban, had been rescued by the MV Tampa. This second was to develop into the “genesis of a brand new era of hardline border insurance policies”, together with legal guidelines allowing authorities to shoot at refugee boats, flip them away at sea, and incarcerate individuals indefinitely in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
Denied safety by Australia, New Zealand willingly resettled Abbas and his household. A extremely articulate, clever individual, Abbas went on to win scholarships to the College of Canterbury and a Fulbright scholarship to Georgetown College in Washington DC. His transferring guide, After the Tampa, gives a uncommon perception into the human aspect of the Tampa story – what it means to be uprooted, to flee, to hunt security, and at last, to be given a chance for a brand new life.
Listening to Abbas, I felt optimism, but additionally a way of deep loss. Australia misplaced a era of refugees like Abbas. We additionally misplaced our good worldwide fame, our humanity and our hope.
It’s time for a reset of Australia’s refugee insurance policies. With a brand new federal authorities and a crossbench largely dedicated to a extra humane and first rate Australia, will we dare sort out this? Will those that have fought this subject as a tradition warfare take into account sturdy options? It needn’t be a partisan subject, and lengthy was not.
Over the previous 80 years, Australia has given nearly one million refugees the prospect of a brand new life, recent alternatives and renewed hope. On the finish of World Warfare II, Prime Minister Chifley welcomed 170,000 displaced individuals from the camps of Europe – with out convening a single focus group, as Thomas Keneally wryly noticed. When Prime Minister Fraser was confronted by boats of Vietnamese asylum seekers to Australia’s north, he insisted that they be handled humanely, processed pretty, and given safety.
Hieu van Le, the previous Governor of South Australia who arrived by boat in 1977 in search of asylum, described being greeted in Darwin Harbour by “two blokes with shorts and singlet”, who “waved to us and steered their boat very shut … and one among them raised his stubby as if proposing a toast. ‘G’day mate,’ he shouted, ‘welcome to Australia’.”
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