Border protection

• life

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

A couple of weeks or so ago we received a mailout from Senator Judith Adams, Liberal Senator for Western Australia, Deputy Opposition Whip in the Senate. There is one thing I hate above all else, and that is fearmongering. I am all for intelligent discussion and debate and being exposed to the many facets of a situation so that one can make an informed decision as to which side of the fence they are going to sit on so to speak. I have a rabid hatred of SHOUTING TO MAKE YOUR POINT AND BEING RIGHT BECAUSE YOU SAY IT LOUDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE and abuse of emotive language to drum up a reaction.

I felt the Senator’s mailout was rmisleading at best and outright lies at worst, and didn’t feel that the convenient little envelope sized return slip bearing three checkbox questions (do you agree with this question? tick yes/no) and four lines worth of “other information” was nearly big enough to express my concerns adequately so I sent her an email.

Some friends have suggested I send it in to newspapers and stuff but I don’t trust them to not mangulate and misrepresent, so I’ve reformatted it into a blog post. Here goes.

Points quoted from the pamphlet titled “What you need to know about border security” included in the mailout:

• Since the Rudd Government came into power, 105 boats and 4875 people have arrived illegally

The included bar chart which starts in the 2002-2003 period proudly proclaims 0 boat people for that period, and yet this article titled “Push vs Pull - Asylum Seeker Numbers and Statistics” (Scott Steel, 19 Oct 2009), which references linked data, shows otherwise and explains why:

Let’s be clear – this is what the Pacific Solution did – it diddled the stats by redefinition. Boats still made the attempt to enter Australia – which is a point worth noting as many of the proponents of Pull Factors cite reducing the risk of death from reducing the number of people attempting the voyage by boat, as one of their key rationales. Yet we know that SIEV(s) 5,7,11 and 12 in 2002 attempted to make the journey and were returned to Indonesia while SIEV(s) 4,6 and 10 actually sank. That was in very late 2001 through late 2002. In 2003 we know that boats were still attempting to make the voyage such as SIEV 14, but were again towed back from whence they came. The UNHCR estimates that 1600 people were diverted throughout the time of the Pacific Solution, but hard numbers are difficult to come by.

What that figure doesn’t take into account are the numbers that attempted the voyage but were turned back – nor those that sank or were suspected of being lost at sea.

If we adjust the 2002 number to account for boats that not only attempted to make the voyage, but ended up detained within the Pacific Solution system using the numbers provided by the Select Committee for an inquiry into a certain maritime incident 2002, we can add 1546 to the 2002 number.

There is a bit of a difference between 0 and 1546.

Now my favourite dead horses:

• This is a slap in the face for every person who has applied properly for a visa or as a genuine refugee through proper channels and is waiting for approval.

What is the actuality? Are the people who “do the right thing” getting processed at any geat speed anyway? The Department of Immigration and Citizenship gives an average of 3-6 months allowing for occasions that may blow it out. I have friends who immigrated on partner/spouse visas and apparently wait times of 2+ years were not uncommon, and this was before the boat people suddenly became a problem. What is happening: fingers of blame pointing at convenient people scapegoated as holding up/jumping the queue. What should be happening: overhauling the processing system so that everyone gets processed more efficiently.

• Labor offers soft policies and special deals to those who can pay to circumvent the system while those who follow the rules are forced to wait longer.

That is assuming that “proper channels” are available and the boat people maliciously choose to “jump the queue”, or in fact are making any deliberate, conscious choices as to which country they should flee to. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to clap your eyes on some of those glorified driftwood rafts the people smugglers try to pass off as boats, you would wonder what person with any capacity for logical rational thought would VOLUNTARILY choose a rickety tub of dubious ocean-faring capabilities packed to the rafters with several other people, often lacking adequate supplies, and that would take WEEKS with a high chance of sinking to get to wherever they’re going, if they could just as easily fork out for the paperwork and the plane ticket and get to wherever they’re trying to get to with a higher chance of getting there and a markedly lower chance of dying.

Speaking of visas and proper channels, from Fact Sheet 86 - Overstayers and Other Unlawful Non-citizens (produced by the National Commuications Branch, Dept of Immigration and Citizenship, Canberra, revised 31 Aug 2009):

In the 2007-08 financial year, it was estimated that around 14 000 people overstayed their visa"

And then you have in the section titled “Unlawful Non-citizens” from Beyderwellen&Co who say they are Immigration Barristers and Soliciters:

Current Australian Government estimates are that there are approximately 46,000 unlawful non-citizens in Australia, of which 26,200 have remained here unlawfully for more than 5 years. The largest groups of unlawful non-citizens in Australia come from the United Kingdom and the USA.

Press release from the UN Refugee agency ("Upsurge in asylum seekers in industrialized world a myth, says UNHCR Chief", 23 Mar 2010):

The United States stayed the main destination country for the fourth year, with 13 percent of the claims representing an estimated 49,000 people, in particular from China. Second was France, receiving 42,000 new applications in 2009, a 19 percent hike compared to 2008, due to increasing claims from citizens of Serbia originating predominantly from Kosovo. Canada, while still ranking third among receiving countries, saw the number of asylum applications decrease by 10 percent in 2009 down to 33,000 after a drop in Mexican and Haitian claims. Following was The United Kingdom which also registered a drop in claims with 29,800 applications, one of the lowest in 15 years. On the other hand, claims in Germany increased by 25 percent with 27,600 applications recorded in 2009, making it the fifth largest receiving country. Together, these five top destination countries received 48 percent of the total claims recorded in 2009.

Australia doesn’t warrant a mention except that it’s included in the yearly report. I dug up these stats from EarthTrends.

It only covers 2005-2007 but quite clearly shows that even if our asylum seeker rate has “increased 30%” (quoted from the letter), we barely rate beside the UK and US. They number in the tens or hundred thousands normally and the reported “30% higher than international trends” (quoted from the pamphlet) has taken us to a bit under 5000.

5000 people arriving on leaky boats is a threat to border security, but 46 000 people who just happen to waltz in on visas and neglect to leave at the expiration of said visas are of no concern. Why is that? If you want to subscribe to the theory of terrorist organisations on religious war missions or whatever the latest fad is, they would be arriving by plane. This makes villifying boat people both an epic border security fail and an epic human rights fail. Well done.

I ended with suggesting that if they were after votes, well thought out policies that encouraged self determination, protected basic human rights, were ecologically sound and had a genuine concern for the long term future of Australia and the rest of the world beyond the 3-4 years between election was preferable over smear and fearmongering campaigns.

If only.

This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License