Abbott's win not a good news for the “boat people”
(from Newzzit; the original story is here http://newzzit.com/stories/abbotts-win-not-good-news-for-the-boat-people)
Quick Summary
Dealing with asylum-seekers coming to Australia by boat was a major issue in the just concluded elections.
The out-going Rudd Government had put in place the “Final Solution” in July this year.
With Abbott coming to power, “By Boat, No Visa” policy set to get stricter.
Australia'sopposition leader Tony Abbott is the country's 28thprime minister after his Liberal-National coalition defeated thegoverning Labour Party by winning 88 seats in the 150-seatparliament. While the two parties differed on issues such as measuresfor tackling an expected economic slowdown and reducing thecontroversial carbon emissions tax, both displayed politicallyexpedient bi-partisan urgency on supposedly “vote-winning” issueof reducing the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat, or “boatpeople” as they are called.
As recently asJuly, the then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had announced allasylum-seekers, even women and children, arriving by boat with noAustralian visa will be sent to the impoverished Papua New Guinea orNauru for further processing or resettlement. “The asylum-seekerswill not enjoy any right ever of being processed to go to Australia.There will be no cap on the number of people who can be transferredor resettled in Papua New Guinea or Nauru,” his government said.
While Ruddclaimed “this policy is designed to stop people smugglers and stopfurther loss of life at sea”, critics have dubbed it as Rudd's“Final Solution”.
Who are these “boatpeople”?
Theseasylum-seekers are mainly people fleeing from war-infested zones suchas Middle-East, Iraq and Afghanistan, and from countries likeIndonesia and Sri Lanka, who bribe “people smugglers” in hope ofa better life in Australia. As the boats used in smuggling people arenot well-equipped, many drown en-route. Those who survive, are sentto the detention centres[or “concentration camps” as critics callthem] in isolated islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Evenwhen Australia detainsthe “boat people” on its own territory, the conditions are bad.There were 7,632incident reports between October 2009 and May 2011 across thecountry's operational immigration detention facilities includingself-harm, assaults, hunger strikes, riots and disturbances.
For Australia, a land of immigrants,nothing can be more farcical.
Asnotedby award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger, in TheGuardian recently, “For Aborigines and refugees, the irony isself-evident. Only Aboriginal people are true Australians. The restof us – beginning with Captain Cook – are boat people.”
Anew film on Australia by John Pilger, Utopia,commissioned by ITV and produced by Dartmouth Films will premier onOctober 3, which explores the country's suppressed colonial past andits treatment of the Aboriginal population, against the backdrop of ahuge mineral boom.
History of the “boat people”
1992: Mandatory detention for refugees arriving in boats was put in place.
1998: A report by Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) stated that such detentions violated international as well as Australia's own human rights obligations.
2001: As known colloquially, “Pacific Solution” is implemented by the John Howard Government. This entailed detaining asylum-seekers in the Pacific islands, Nauru and Manus (in Papua New Guinea), while their asylum claims were processed. Such claims were not processed under Australian law and claimants had no access to legal assistance or judicial review.
2004: HREOC publishes a report criticising Australian immigration laws and stated that the “Pacific Solution” is fundamentally inconsistent with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
2008: “Pacific Solution” ends. Now, Asylum-seekers were sent to the Christmas Island, a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean, instead of Manus and Nauru.
2012: The Julia Gilliard Government ties-up with the governments of Nauru and Papua New Guinea again and restarts offshore processing of asylum-seekers. By year-end, 414 people were transferred to Nauru and 155 to the Manus Island.
July, 2013: The Kevin Rudd Government implements “Final Solution”, as known colloquially, which means all asylum-seekers will be held indefinitely on Papua New Guinea, with no chance of ever going to Australia.
August, 2013: A UN human rights committee calls Australia’s indefinite detention of 46 recognized refugees on security grounds amounting to “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, inflicting serious psychological harm on them”. The refugees - 42 Tamils from Sri Lanka, three Rohingya from Myanmar and a Kuwaiti, are in detention for the last two and a half years.
September, 2013: Tony Abbott storms to power. Earlier, during his election campaign, Abbott had stated that if his party wins, he will deport refugees already in Australian detention centres and will not hesitate to use the Navy to stop asylum boats. He also plans to create a new “tent city” on Nauru to house the “boat people”.