Seeking asylum by boat or by plane
Why is it that asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by sea provoke a very different political reaction from those arriving by air?
So far this year just over 1,700 unauthorised immigrants have arrived by boat, a tenfold increase on 2008. But the number is dwarfed by those arriving by air - over 50,000 who tend to overstay their visas, thus becoming unauthorised immigrants, and then avoid detection. These "plane people" hardly raise an eyebrow. Not so the "boat people", like the 250 or so Sri Lankan Tamils intercepted by the Indonesian navy following a personal plea from Kevin Rudd to the Indonesian president.
It's a paradox that demands explanation.
Perhaps planes have a civilising impact on public opinion. If you can afford a ticket to Australia, maybe the reasoning goes, then you have more of a claim to stay here. Perhaps it is because many of those who overstay their visas are white. Perhaps it is simply that the television cameras are not normally on hand to capture their arrival - unless they happen to belong to Channel Seven's Border Security, one of Australia's most popular primetime shows.
Certainly, the boat people tend to provide much more arresting imagery: their floating shanties captured on a long lens and set against the azure seas of the Indian Ocean.
Because the arrival of boat people lends itself to the dramatic requirements of television and newspaper front-pages, it can easily become the subject of political theatre. And certainly, there has been something slightly vaudevillian about the political reaction from Kevin Rudd and the opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull. In the words of Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald, they have "engaged in their own he-man contest over asylum seekers". In essence, they have tried to out hardline eachother.
Both seem to have learned from the 2001 "Tampa" election, when John Howard outmaneuvered the then Labor leader Kim Beazley over the asylum seeker issue. Nowadays, it appears to be received wisdom in Australian politics that you have to be tough on asylum seekers, and particularly boat people, if you are to remain politically viable. In America, supporting the death penalty is deemed a similar requirement for presidential aspirants.
So the political blows traded over the boat people have had the feel of a professional wrestling match, where the moves seem choreographed beforehand, the confrontation seems rather phony and the wrestlers are not so much playing to the grandstand as the cheap seats at the back. Two men who do not naturally articulate the voice of middle Australia are seemingly trying their damnedest to articulate the voice of middle Australia - and, to many, it sounds a bit forced and inauthentic.
So a question in what I promise will be the last race-related blog for the time being: does Rudd and Turnbull's rhetoric truly reflect the dominant strain of Australian public opinion on the boat people question, or is there something almost Pavlovian about their political posturing?
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~50~RS~)
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You BBC types really are quite simple and predictable, aren't you? Why is every problem in the universe viewed through the leftoid prism of racism or Marxist views of economic oppression?
It costs these bogus "asylum seekers" (let's be honest and call them what they are: queue-jumping economic migrants) upward of USD20,000 to travel to Australia on a SIEV (via several safe countries I might add). It has nothing to do with having money or being non-white: non-white citizens of Britain can travel to Australia if you haven't noticed. And there are plenty of non-Europeans in Australia too. You're in Sydney. Look out your office window.
The problem is not 250 Sri Lankans per se. The problem is the precedent set by letting them in simply because they show up. If Australia were to accept 250 people on the basis that they look pathetic, there would be hundreds of thousands, if not millions on our doorstep within a matter of months. And what about those who queue legally for years in refugee camps in appalling conditions? Net immigration to Australia was over 250,000 last year alone. It's not as if we don't do our bit. Lay off the race baiting.
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What’s so annoying about all this is that people will constantly throw out the race card in a weak attempt to claim the moral high ground. Usually something under the lines of “it’s because they aren’t white!” or some other equally tiresome one liner we have all heard a million times before.
One favourite line is the “nation of immigrants” verse. People who use this had best watch out or somebody will call them to task on it. These immigrants they mention I am myself descended from and we came here to Australia to escape the “old country” and we worked hard as did everybody else and we embraced Australian values instead of coming here and saying “everybody has to give us an existence and we don’t have to adapt, if you ask us to you are racist” nobody gave us handouts and we didn’t expect them, everybody has had their hardship. These people really make many of us look horrible and honestly, the resentment of this attitude these “asylum seekers” have I think is justified. Especially regarding their frequent attempts to yank on the heart strings of good hearted but weak minded people.
Many quite simply want and expect a handout and will happily tread on the very principles that made Australia the great place that it is, and then act genuinely bemused when people resent it and in their confusion they will start throwing out accusations of racism. Then the same patronising people will rush to their aid saying “everybody else should pay for these people, or they are mean and the entire nation of Australia is racist”.
Curiously, when these people are told “why don’t you pay for everything if you are so charitable?” the silence is deafening.
Regarding the “plane people”, two wrongs do not make a right so people saying “well, they are here, so let’s let in the rest as well” really need to save their breath. The “plane people” really should have been dealt with a long time ago and perhaps this issue will raise awareness of them. Also, “plane people” clearly make much less of a fuss or we’d be hearing more about them. Finally, it’s widely known that a lot of these “asylum seekers” are from more wealthy backgrounds in their home nations (paying people smugglers isn’t cheap) and many *flew* to Indonesia (a point that has been missed) before getting on boats to sail to Australia.
This line “I bet it’s because they are white!” is tired and worn and seems to assume that every last single one of them would be white anyway (though many certainly would be). As if any nation in the west will happily tolerate illegals just because of the colour of their skin even though they are contributing much less to society. They are simply being quiet about it and people don’t exactly ask “excuse me, are you an illegal immigrant?” before reporting everything to the local police beat.
Thank you Mr. Bryant for allowing me to comment.
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Nick Bryant:
Why is it that asylum seekers who attempt to reach Australia by sea provoke a very different political reaction from those arriving by air?
Since, it is more respectable and accepted by the Political Class; Regarding the technique of arrival!
~Dennis Junior~
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The plane people come legaly while the boat people come illegaly. If we stopped the plane people we'd be stopping tourism and we can't exactly do that now can we?
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Nick WWII was where all this started. After nearly being invaded by the Japanese, the then Labor Government of Ben Chiffley realised we need to 'populate or perish'. In 1948 came the formation of a new political party, the Liberal party, with Robert Menzies being their first Prime Minister. He was a racist. His government took white Australia as its mantra and Britain as our only main source of migrants. However as we began to see the attrocities of Communism in Europe, the Liberal government began to allow migrants from other parts of Europe...South east Asians were still not allowed...nor were any dark skinned peoples.
It was the Whitlam and Hawke Labor Governments that first started encouraging South and South East Asians into Australia, and this riled the racists.
This culminated in the form of Pauleen Hanson. Her speech to the Parliament captured the feeling of the racists best when she said 'we are flooded with Asians'.
The truth of course was most of the Asians she saw from her fish and chips shop were actually students, or holiday makers from those nations.
John Howard, seeing how he could capitolise on this rising racism, and after all Pauleen Hanson had been a member of the Liberal Party who was passed over at preselection in her area, set the scene for what we now call the boat people saga.
There had been a number of incident in places like Cabramatta in outer Sydney, culminating in the death of a member of State Parliament, for which an ex Vietnamese was accused.
This, and other similar incidents, was all John Howard wanted.
He won a land slide victor, just as Menzies had with his 'we are being invaded by hoards from the north.'
Meanwhile Howard, like Menzies, turned a blind eye to the many migrants, mostly from Europe and mostly from Britian, who were either flying directly here on holiday visas, or arriving via NZ and South Africa.
So it goes without saying that this matter flairs up old fires, in both political camps, because on one side you have the remnants of the white Australia policy, strongly supported by what is left of the Pauleen Hanson followers, and on the other, that we are in the South East Asian region and should be taking more South East Asians migrant....both party's however strongly oppose illegal migrants arriving without any visas at all.
The fact is we have had quite a few civil wars, and similar incidents in this region over the past few years, including the Indonesian-East Timor struggle since first the invasion, and then the independence. The Sri Lankan civil war of late, a similar skirmish in the Philippines, and of course the remnants of older wars such as Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia.
I personally want to see an end to the boat smugglers but I don't want our tax dollar being wasted building detention centres all over the South East, only to have most of those detained, freed and given permanent residency...as was the case under Howard's pathetic scheme....and he had far more boat people in detention centres than is the case now...many of his centres have since been closed.
As I have said before we need a balanced migration policy, that is we need to balance the people we allow into Australia, not on what colour their skin is, but on what advantages they can bring to building and independent Australia.
Historically speaking, while we continue to over compensate in favour of British migrants, as we have been doing since the war, we will never have a truly independent nation with its own personality.
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#5
The dismantling of White Australia had more to do with Harold Holt and the Liberals. Whitlam just finished it off in the 1970s
Harold Holt was responsible for immigration in the Menzies Government in 1949 when he let some non-white WW2 refugees remain in Australia. He also brought in war brides of Australian servicemen based in postwar Japan. Then as PM in 1966, Holt began to relax the conditions on nonwhite immigration, with no public fuss - public opinion had changed considerably since pre WW2
Regarding the topic
My understanding is that the 'plane people' arrive mostly from the UK and US and then overstay ie they're not claiming asylum (unless from British weather!)
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6 = Wollemi yes but was it Liberal party policy? My understanding was that Labor had first raised the flag on the removal of the white Australia policy, but we didn't have a Labor Government after WWII till Whitlam's in the 70's. In fact Autralian hisotry, since WWII is primarily Liberal/Country/National governments.
And the numbers of war brides, migrants from not white background etc that the Libs did allow into Australia were more of a token gesture, as I remember it. British migrants hugely outnumbered non white migrants.
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The majority of the ilegal immigrants come from the UK and NZ, and overstay their visas.
Many do so to live here permanently.
People don't really care, and it is because they are from countries white Australians relate to.
Boat people mostly come from Asia and the Middle East.
In my opinion they are treated differently because people are racist.
Ironically they'd probably contribute more to our country economically, something people refuse to acknowledge.
People talk about them trampling on our culture and other ridiculous assertions based on ignorance and the inherint fear of what's different.
Like 350 Tamils are going to somehow manage to trample on our culture. Like we even have one homogenous culutre that everyone agrees on.
People throw out vauge generalisations and attribute intangible concepts to Australia as though they were exclusive to this country.
Like people in other countries don't want people to have a fair go, or enjoy humour or respect those who work hard.
People are sometimes just close minded.
A point I would raise about boat people is that many people die trying to get here by boat. It's a very dangerous journey.
For that reason alone it should be discouraged.
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8 JPWallace: *Clap, clap* Brilliantly said...if you're thinking of standing in the next election, you have my vote....unless you stand with Pauleen.
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Thanks Pete, but I leave the politics to my brother.
I'm much to idealistic to make it in politics. I'll just stick to the markets.
Here's an interesting article critisising Rudd for his policies on Asylum Seekers.
Nick, I hope it's ok to link this mate?http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/blogs/episodes/rudds-hero-the-people-smuggler/20091020-h6xn.html
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I said this on a previous post but it's fairly simnple as I see it.
The main difference between the two is that a migrant or asylum seeker who arrives in Australia by plane - actually arrives in Australia. The question of whose responsibility it is has been answered: Australia's.
Why then are boat people who are currently located in a safe country ("safe" as opposed to "desired"), or in the territorial waters of a safe country, considered to be the responsibility of a different country? Incidentally, Indonesia has offered asylum, refugee status and resettling processes for the current load of Tamils. Seems a bit presumptuous to claim asylum, then reject it if it isn't in your aspirational destination.
Lets flip it - if NZ deteriorated into civil war and a boatload of Maori arrived in Newcastle then trekked overland to Broome and boarded a pearl boat.. are they now Jakarta's responsibility? Or Delhi's? Or anyone but Canberra's?
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texbeijing wrote:
"Fantastic Nick, truly fantastic! Not only was your blog completely irrelevant and ill-conceived; but you misspelled both manOeuvre and phonEy!"
So, texbeijing, you couldn't do better than come up with an "irrelevant" ad hominem argument and fell flat on your face doing so. Phony/phoney are alternative spellings and "outmaneuvered", whilst not being British English' is nevertheless correct American English (maneuver, Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary).
As for your use of lower case 'i' in, "Billy basics i think you'll all agree, key to that little thing called credibility - which i will forevermore assume you have none." How do you explain this egregious error?
Is your real name, by any chance, Billy Basics; where's your credibility?
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JPWallace can you please tell me how a New Zealand citizen (with the exception of those with a criminal record) can actually overstay their Australian Visa ? Kiwis do not require a Visa to enter Australia and can infact legally stay as long as they want.
Re- the arrival by plane vs arrival by boat, those arriving by plane and overstaying their visa are not as Benign a risk as some on this blog would like you to believe.
Most women forced into Prostitution arrived here on a student, tourist or spousal visa and boarded planes in Thailand, Vietnam and the Phillipines just to name a few, should we not be as concerned about thir safety as those risking their lives at the hands of people smugglers.
While most of Visa Overstayers are young backpackers not all are, and I would like to argue that if a person intentionally lies about the purpose of their visit to stay permanently or long term they are infact illegally entering Australia and therefore illegal immigrants the moment they walk through immigration.
Given a choice between those who set out purposely to enter and stay in country by deceipt vs those who turn up in leaking boat and are processed in due course, give me those in the boat as at least they haven't snuck into the country to do God knows what.
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You're right Marksp1970, and I should have been clearer. Alot of the ilegal immigrants from 'NZ' are not NZ citizens, they often come from Pacific nations or the UK.
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What many people are ignoring is that the majority of people in Australia as elsewhere in the West are feed up with the "illegals" in particular & the "refugees" in general. As for the latest lot of Tamils, they could have gone a hundred or so km to Namil Tadu in India, it's just across the straits. They speak the same languae & have the same culture. But no welfare. If refugess could not have access to the welfare system there would be a lot, lot less of them. Its interesting how the media play up the plight of "refugees" but don't look too deeply at the cause & effect, facts & honesty that are involved in the refugee industry. Yes REFUGEE INDUSTRY. How many in the legal profession make big money out of going to Court (at taxpayer's expense) on behalf a poor refugee but they wouldn't do the same type of work for a local on the same conditions. Most refugees have passed through a few countries where they could have stopped & settled but demand access to the West & its welfare system. I wonder how the media would react if the media was made to pay for these individuals rather than the taxpayer?
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We have a moral obligation to refugees.
I would hate to live in a country that has the brutal, selfish inhumanity to turn away genuine refugees.
Further to that, stop refering to these people just as 'ilegals'.
They are people, just like you and I.
Put yourself in their position. Empathise with them for a moment.
If you were the parent of a young family you knew was going to be faced with a life of grinding poverty, would you not do everything in your power to offer a better life to your children, consequences be damned?
I know I would.
And if a man wants to put his world on his back and struggle across continents and oceans to get to our shores just for the opportunity of a better life, than I respect that man, and I would like to see him given that opportunity.
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Tired rhetoric like yours JPWallace has already been responded to before a thousand times before.
If you are as much of a hero as you make yourself out to be, then perhaps you can put your big money where your even bigger mouth is and pay for them yourself out of your own pocket. It flies in the face of everybody else who has ever come here to Australia after leaving hardship and wartorn parts of the world (my family), to then be told that despite them working when they came here and not asking for a handout – they now owe a life to somebody who has gone through numerous safe countries to reach this one who then comes here and doesn’t feel he has to contribute as much as everybody else did because of some genuinely bad circumstances despite many others having bad stories themselves.
Many of them come here and emotionally blackmail people such as you, threatening to blow their own boat up (men, women, children all) if they don’t get in. Then threatening to starve them after that when their bluff is called.
Just how many people do you think this nation can hold anyway? Every single one? We even have unemployment problems and aboriginal communities in need (who are having some of their things taken away to help illegals).
We can’t let in everybody just to satisfy your hero-complex and besides, you want everybody else to foot the bill either entirely or equally with you and then when people don’t want to hand everything over to satisfy you, you will call them “selfish” because they think these illegals should work like everybody else did when they came here fleeing war.
The irony is palpable.
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On ya JPWallace!
You have restored my faith in actual humanity in Australia.
To all of you who are point out that these asylum seekers passed through "safe countries" to get here. These "safe" countries such as Indonesia have NOT signed the UN convention which will result in them living " a squalid life for years to come, without work or education, with no certainty about where their eventual home will be." (SMH article that JPWallace).
Australia however has signed this Convention, meaning that these asylum seekers can not be considered "illegal".
I didn't realise how cruel people can be to their fellow human beings.
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We should all please put aside racial arguments for a second.
Fact: Australia is second only to Canada as far as granting asylum goes, per capita, in the OECD. This is nothing to do with race or racism. This is about fairness.
The people who come by plane bring their passport. They are willing to follow the processes Australia has in place to assess their claims and be processed accordingly. If their situation is legitimate, they can stay - irrespective of their race or background.
Otherwise, they get sent home.
Fair.
The people who come by boat pay MORE than a plane ticket (yes, they PAY to be 'smuggled' here - this is a lucrative industry), as soon as they depart Indonesia (where the smugglers operate) they destroy their passports so their identity and background can not be determined.
In short, they are deliberately rorting the system.
Not Fair.
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Yes actually, boat people are often those with less money, hence they take "the slow boat to China"; however, those who take planes are probably well off better then those on the boat.
Society is not about altruism; boiled downed everything is about cost/benefits. A welfare state accepting asylum seekers; often have to look into housing and a sustainable income, this means that the citizens of the nation will have to bare the brunt unless they (plane asylum seekers) may be able to sustain their own and support the economy by creating jobs.........come to think of it; can I become a citizen as well? Got over 100K of savings. lol
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*sighs*
Actually HRmazs, there are countries which are within reach of these places which *have* signed this agreement; Cambodia, Yemen, the Philippines, Iran and nearly every nation in Africa. The problem is that Australia is a much better place to be then all these places and people like yourself and JPWallace can be emotionally blackmailed and guilt-tripped by these people under the saying of “if you don’t, your entire country is mean and horrible” and you fall for it every single time.
The issue isn’t about being mean for the sake of being mean or any tiresome point regarding race (what you think). It’s about people demanding a better life which everybody else has to pay for, simply because of bad circumstances in their lives. Then they feel they don’t have to do anything ever again and probably don’t even have to integrate at all, simply because (admittedly) good hearted but weak minded people can be guilt-tripped if the plan is ever discovered. These people happily go against many of the things this country was built on in the name of getting things for free, Australians from what I have seen of them are generous and kind but they certainly are not stupid, it’s about fairness.
These people make anybody who is descended from genuine refugees who wanted to work and integrate with this new country look terrible, many of them simply don’t want to and you are being taken for a ride.
When you own your own house and you work hard and pay taxes, you will understand. If you already do, none of us are stopping you from leading the way by being the first to put up your own house for them to stay in or donating more money for them to use on whatever they want.
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Thank you very much, TotallyBaffled, for exposing my 'egregious error' in typing a lower-case i, in a sentence. It is, however, a recognised and correct method of displaying said character. Many authors and poets choose this method, as it is only a modern phenomenon (through the printing era) that the capitalisation of the letter i, has come to pass.
As for trying to justify 'maneuvre' as American English; well, we all might as well write about beautiful colors, tantalizing centers and the Defense budget. Except that this is an article published on a BRITISH website. Also, i have no idea why you would add a superfluous apostrophe to British English.
You might wish to look at your sentence structuring too!
You truly must be TotallyBaffled! See, anyone can parody a name!
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This is very similar to the situation here in the UK.
A report about a year ago suggested that most of the illegal immigrants in London were people from Austalia and New Zealand who had overstayed their visas.
But here all the reports about "illegal" immigrants are about non-whites or Europeans who are here legally
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I agree Nick, it is odd.
It almost borders on a national hysteria.
The debate is so purile with political stick pig the order of the day.
I find it strange to witness this national obsession and I cannot understand its origins especially since nearly all Australians are immigrants, or children of immigrants or their children.
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G'day everybody,
I've been following this new release, "Bash the Boat People II" for some time. Facts are hard to come by.
However, one thing seems to be true. This is that the "illegal overstaying-their-visa-migrants" only stay a little while longer - according to the Minister for Immigration said on Sky News last night, as I recollect.
So when one compares the number of "illegal coming-in-a-boat migrants" to the "illegal overstaying-their-visa-migrants" it's not comparing apples with apples (according to the Minister for Immigration who failed to provide any numbers at the time).
So are we building arguements on a foundation of myths?
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It's pretty obvious why 'plane-people' don't cause a political storm when they arrive - because they're not illegal immigrants. Anyone without the proper passport and visa documents is not allowed into the country and sent back where they came from, something which should be obvious to anyone who's ever been through an international airport.
'Plane-people' only become illegal after several months if they stay on past their visa, and I think you'll find that Australia's immigration department spends most of their time chasing these illegal workers, it just doesn't make the news because it's routine.
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Boat people allowed centerlink payments
Visa overstayers not allowed centerlink payments
simple, for visa overstayers to actually continue living here would mean that they are at least contributing to the economy.
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fencerjohn, absolutely bravo!
This is the first time I have ever been frustrated enough to post a comment on Nick's blog and it is due to the spurious generalizations flying about here. How do we know the intimate details of 'boat people' finances? How do we know they have paid huge sums to get to Oz on the one hand then all of a sudden, according to the next post, they're broke? How is it that we can tell how many illegal immigrants reside in Oz and exactly how do we know where the majority are from, how they got here or the colour of their skin?
It seems to me that there is little to no statistical data on these things and that the ideologies supposedly underpinning these very heart-felt arguments are exactly that...ideals.
Perhaps we should all get our facts straight on the topic before gobbing off about how manipulative/destitute 'boat people' are or how 'racist/passive' the entire population of Australia are towards them.
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"Illegal immigrants" is an odd term. I'd like to point out that an act is not illegal until the Court says it is. Beforehand, it is just alleged that someone has committed an offence.
So they should actually be referring to them as "alleged illegal immigrants".
Why don't we use the correct term - "refugee".
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I can only comment from my own perspective. I am fearful that these people, not denying that they are human beings, are nevertheless possibly poorer, less educated and less 'cultured'. Race to me is irrelevant. They are probably not athletic and not beautiful. I'd have Usain Bolt and Miranda Kerr on my shores. I am fearful that asylum seekers may not improve Australia in any way. No Advance Australia Fair here. I am even fearful that these people are terrorists. Of course, I'm making assumptions, but that's what I'm prone to do, make assumptions. These assumptions then colour my judgement and lead to my actions -- voting for populist leaders.
I assume people arriving by plane are good people, because I arrived on a plane, and of course, I am good.
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Those who seek opportunities have traveled for all of recorded history. They have found European stock buried in China from at least three thousand years ago. The main thing to understand is that those who move elsewhere generally do better economically than those who stay at home. This portends well for the land of receipt. World economic conditions have created tensions and the expanding world population is also contributing. The original inhabitants of Australia may find this discussion somewhat disconcerting.
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All over the world there are tens of thousands of refugees in camps waiting up to ten years to find somewhere safe to live. If I and my family were in that situation I'm sure I would do almost anything to jump the queue rather than wait that long in appalling and sometimes dangerous circumstances.
But I am not. I'm sitting in a nice house with a fridge full of nice clean food, surrounded by electrical appliances and two cars in the garage. In fact my garage is nicer than those refugees accommodations and my dog has a better standard of living than them.
Where do people like me get off judjing what others will do to simply secure a safe place to live? It's a very easy thing to sit at a computer in an air-conditioned house whining about how slow the broadband connection is while thousands don't even have clean water. To all you out there that say "this is ours and you cant have any" I hope you are never in a situation to desperately need help from someone like yourself.
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Nick, I believe your suspicions are correct. Boat people stories here are just easy points for Politicians and the media, with no victims to complain except the impoverished "criminals" they beat up.
Months ago I asked a number of friends how big the boat people problem is here. No one guessed less than 30,000 and one answer was 100,000. All were genuinely surprised that we expect only a few thousand.
They are hardly replacing our road toll.
I also ask how many illegals arrive by plane and the common response was "I didn't know it was a real problem".
This is the view media creates here. Mixing the threat of teeming millions of impoverished boat people poised to invade, and of organised crime as the driving force. Somehow desperate people all become hardened criminals when a boat and our media are involved.
If you ask people here if successful criminals are more likely to fly to Australia in comfort and enter with a tourist visa or risk a deadly and uncertain trip on a boat, you will be met with amazement at the concept.
Anyone who has entered Australia through an Airport will be given the impression that the biggest threat to Australia is actually stray fruit and untreated timber souvenirs. And the Australian Customs Service are probably correct there.
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There are some very important aspects of this debate that have not yet been raised. When people come to a country other than via the authorised legal system, they come with a particular desire or intent in mind. No one in that country they are heading to really know what that intent is, and this had been the basis of most of the posts here so far.
But what of other possible damages these illegal migrants or refugees may cause. At any of Australia's International Airports, on any given day, truck loads of illegal goods are taken away and incinerated, because of the pests and diseases, currently not in Australia, they could be harbouring. These diseases and pest come via contaminated food, water, plant matter and artifacts, such as wooden objects or furnishings.
How many of the current boat people, if allowed free passage, could carry food, water, and other possible contaminants, into this country.
The area most boat people are heading for, and where they would arrive should Immigration inspectors fail to find them, would be remote areas mostly inhabited by indigenous Aussies. And we know what happened when British settlers first moved into Sydney and Botany Bay in the original settlement days.
There is far more to this than just discussing who should stay and should not, in relation to refugees/illegal migrants.
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I liked this blog - very informative. I'd be interested in more detail about the 50,000 'plane people'. How many of them stay for a long time?
The requirement for any political party to be seen to be tough on asylum seekers is a national disgrace.
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Anyone else notice the irony that many of these people come from Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries we have spent billions on as we attempt to help them, or at least that's our justification for helping to blow the hell out of those two places.
Then we frak out when a couple thousand of them wnat refuge here.
It's just hypocrasy, and it's justifiable only if your morally detached or ignorant.
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34 MatthewCheshire: A very good point concerning the way our media reports on such matters. Once we would get reporters who went for the main story, then the investigative journalist who would hound the issue from one or other side, but from a media perspective. Though today we still have investigative journalists hounding the issue, they are not doing it independently, nor are they making or having an opinion as they used to. Now they will face the Government representative stacked with questions given them by the opposition, or face the Opposition representative stacked with the questions given them by the Government.
All this does is heat up the particular argument or debate, without actually adding any balanced perspective. And often the 'informed opinion' from claimed authorities on the subject, usually are a part of either antagonist.
I have yet to hear a balanced opinion from any of the news outlets concerning the current refugees/illegal migrants...we are just getting mishmash repeats of what the Parliamentarians are saying in Parliament.
Most people would be better off not buying papers, or watching/listening to radio/TV commentaries, and instead tuning into Question Time in Parliament...much funnier anyway...
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The 1950s vintage UN refugee charter needs urgent review to come up to current needs, but until then we are stuck with it unless Australia withdraws - which is unlikely. My solution - any illegal immigrants arriving by any means be located back in the queue, in a UN refugee camp, and the legitimate refugees waiting their turn in that camp be brought forward to Australia.
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This blog questions the motives of politicians as they seek to play to people's prejudices. It's almost as bad as the BBC having every second subject devoted to racism. Me thinks it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
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Here's another link Nick, if that's ok :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/22/2721239.htm?section=australia
This may speak to the real truth behind the irrational hatred towards boat people.
Small minded racism and bigotry.
This is the ugly side of Australian culture.
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Without wading into any race-relating reasons, I am against boat arrivals for the simple of safety.
Illegals, refugees, asylum seekers, call them what you will. Many are genuinely fleeing religious and political persecution, poverty and homelessness or are generally seeking a nicer patch of turf than the one they were set down upon. Others are in it for shadier reasons, be it smuggling or other criminal behaviour.
Flying into Australia is generally very safe. Taking the boat is a different matter. "People smugglers" do not operate motor yachts or luxury liners. They are usually decrepit, barely seaworthy fishing vessels that are only destined for a one way trip ending in disposal by the Australian Navy/Customs.
The Tampa affair, while not involving children overboard, certainly put the idea into a few heads. These people are desperate enough already to take the risk to travel to Australia illegally. We will see more boats set on fire, we WILL see children dumped overboard and we will see the unfortunate deaths of desperate families who sailed on the wrong boat with the wrong people.
It would be moral manslaughter on the part of the government if the green light was ever given to enter the country by these means and it resulted in unnecessary casualties. We need to make sure that the people smugglers get the message that their human cargo, desperate as they are, shall not and will not ever be accepted. For their sakes.
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Herr Hitler probably wasn’t the first politician to realise demonising a minority is s good way to gain and stay in power by diverting attention from other inconvenient issues. In recent memory, it served John Howard too. Experience has shown it isn’t hard to whip up the citizenry, often more engaged in work, sport and meeting their own budgets, into a frenzy on all sorts of issues: Americans are doing a good job of this now in the debate on health insurance. Real leaders with a good majority and a weak and disunited opposition should take that rare opportunity to do the right thing and educate the electorate on the real issues. Leaders who fail to do so should be marked down all the more severely when they don’t.
Many in the population are first generation migrants who could be reminded of that fact when criticising those who seek refuge here now.
As to what the locals are thinking, there is no shortage of contributors here http://is.gd/4vfZK
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“Many in the population are first generation migrants who could be reminded of that fact when criticising those who seek refuge here now.”
Thank you listohan, it just so happens I have come from such people. :)
You can be reminded that when my came here they didn’t ask everybody to step aside and give them a life because of their bad circumstances, they worked (and continue to work) hard and they embraced this nations values instead of wanting to impose themselves on everybody else.
I’m thankful for the opportunity my family was/has been given here in this country and I really don’t like people that would take these opportunities and throw them in the face of Australians and say “That’s not good enough, give us more or you are bad”. What gives you the right (and JPWallace and those like him) to demand everybody hamstring themselves to satisfy your guilt complexes?
We didn’t emotionally blackmail weak minded (but good hearted) people with any hardship of our own to demand special treatment (and we never will) and we know that people all across the world have hardships of their own.
You can also be reminded that the current administration demonises a group which has been out of office for around 2 years now as the people to take the blame for many current problems.
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newsobserver, thanks for calling me good hearted, though I'm a little insulted you think I'm weak minded, but fair enough if that's the way you see it.
As a country we have alot of money mate, alot of opportunity, more than we need. We are one the richest places on the Earth and we live lives most of the world's people will never enjoy.
We can afford to show these people humanity. It won't cost that much. It's not gonna make your life harder, you interest rates won't go up, you can still pay off the house, raise the kids and earn a living, we all can.
Maybe I'm not being blackmailed by anyone. Maybe I just see it differently to you, maybe the way I see it, it would be wrong to treat this small group of people (and it is a small number) like horrible lecherous criminals. They aren't gonna take our jobs mate, they aren't gonna leach all our tax money.
If anything the current strategy of paying billions of dollars to build detention centers and bribe other countries is gonna cost us a lot more.
Do you realise that the vast majority of the people Howard had locked up in Pacific Island detention camps ended up having valid refugee status and being admitted to our country?
And did it hurt us? Did you lose your house or your job?
If you did it's because of greedy investment bankers in New York and London, not a few poor refugees from Asia. Why not direct your anger at them?
They are gonna cost you a lot more money than 350 Tamils on a sinking boat.
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Newsobserver these old arguments raise thier heads every time there are high numbers of people trying to get into this country. There are many urban myths about what refugees ask for. The same old arguments are heard in most countries.
In the seventies they raised thier ugly heads when the Vietnamese were coming. Since then the standard of living has never been so high, unemployment is low and the economy is still booming. Despite all these newcomers most of us, including you are doing alright.
What needs to happen is for the UN to actually step up and stop these problems from occuring in the first place. Just imagin if the trillions of dollars spent on the Iraq and Afghan conflicts was spent on improving these peoples lives. If they didnt have to run then logically they wouldnt.
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Hmmmmm…..
It’s not so much about “oh no, foreign people!” for most people I don’t think it’s to do with race in the slightest (though for a few people it is, especially those who are very left wing).
It’s about values.
If you want to come into a nation, demand everybody conform to your beliefs/values and allow you to happily trample on the very values that made a first world nation what it is, then don’t be surprised if some people rightfully think you should choose to live somewhere else.
This isn’t racism, sexism, fascism, whatever. It’s a simple truth to anybody of awareness or intellect.
Acting like everybody should step aside for you, feeling you can have a sense of entitlement to everything and even asking that the law not apply to you and throwing down persecution cards if anybody calls you out on it is just poor form. You don’t have to destroy your own culture and values or whatever. You have to respect the country and its people, and you know something……We liked this place so much we became Australians and I love this nation and it’s people so very much for it, giving my family that came before me the chance to make a life here.
Simply acting like you should be given better treatment/things for free because of genuinely bad circumstances, taking it from people who have worked hard to get what they have is also poor form.
My family never did that when they came here from the old country, and nobody else should either. It’s bad what happened, yes. JPWallace it’s nice you want to help people, though if you be patronising and just keep giving them things for free then it’s unlikely they would want to integrate or work and that would create legitimate problems.
You come here to start a new life, not bring in the poor-quality values which made the place you left into a warzone.
Equal opportunity.
That said, there isn’t anything stopping people from helping them out of their own pockets, people just shouldn’t try to make it law that everybody else’s circumstances must be meaningless because of somebody’s bad luck.
Regarding the illegal immigrants (to anywhere), from small things big things come, regarding these bankers….two wrongs never make a right. Regarding the money…I agree 100%. It could certainly go to a million better places.
Finally, regarding the UN in conflict…..that organisation is a pipe-dream; they (sadly) can’t really do anything.
Hope this helps.
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Mate, all these horrible attributes you're applying to these Tamils, you don't actually know if any of them are true.
What if they come here, get jobs (and they'd probably be hard, low-paying jobs that would be available to them) and just raise their families?
Which is what most refugees do when they get here?
What if they don't cost our economy anything, but instead they boost it by working hard at jobs other people won't take?
Then your arguments would no longer be valid right?
And what if I told you that's what the vast majority of refugees or asylum seekers, or boat people, or whatever you want to call these poor, desperate people, end up doing when they get here?
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Australia is a huge place, slightly larger than continental USA, yet we are lucky if we are using 20% of it sustainably, at the moment.
Most of our major cities are overly populated, and the ethnic tensions will only grow as we allow more and more refugees to migrate here from different ethnic and religious back grounds. Our current water storage, in all states, is tested to say the least, and in some cases, planned dams will be undersupplying the moment they are completed. This is particularly true in Queensland. Because people will choose major cities to dwell, more and more usable land will go to buildings for homes and employment, and infrastructure such as sewerage, roads, power generation, water storage etc
Farm lands that once produced wheat and wool, especially in central, and country NSW, Queensland and other larger states, barely produces a third of what was produced then, and already we are importing food once produced here.
Yet the debate on the future use of Australia, how to increase water storage, how to utilise poor to marginal land quality, etc. is non existent.
Why aren't we discussing how we are going to sustain ourselves in this new century? What plans are afoot to create new cities, new centres of population, outside of the current metropolitan areas? None.
In the meantime, other nations continue to see Australia as 'the dream down under', and choose us as their desired destination when conflict strikes their nation. What information are they given as to how critical is our infrastructure to sustain them and their offspring in the long term? Zilch.
Shouldn't the debate be, not how many boat people, refugees, overstayers,etc. should stay here, but how we are going to sustain and improved this country to accommodate them and their offspring, before it turns into a dust bowl, save for the sprinkling of 'Manhattens' around some of our coast.
And what happens when the mines run out, or at least when other nations have no need of our raw resources, especially with the world looking ot reduce green house gasses? What renewable products will replace the huge income the mining industry currently brings us all in the form of taxes?
These are the matters we should be discussing. These are the areas we should be looking to, not the current naval...or should that be navy....gazing which will be an obsolete subject in a few years time, once the current boat people and refugee situatin settles.
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newobserver, you paint yourself as a more deserving, honourable and hard working immigrant to australia than any potential downtrodden refugee. I just wonder if you weren't british and australia didn't have an open door immigration policy to Anglo's whether you would have even made it in through the front door in the first place.
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JPWallace, it’s nice if they want to do what you say. Though this country already has unemployment and you need to realise that not every first world nation is some magical place where everybody can have everything they want, things are built on hard work and not handouts.
This idea which people of “the west” seem to have about anybody who’s an immigrant “doing the jobs everybody else won’t do” is tired, worn and untrue. It’s also annoying to think everybody would have this impression of my own family.
A good example is America, they (usually illegal immigrants coming from Mexico) do the jobs cheaper then everybody else legally can and frankly, this kind of stuff widens the gap between rich and poor (unemployment there is around 10% as well). Anyway, that place is an entirely different issue so let’s not go down that garden path. Needless to say, just “giving them all everything for free, for getting over the boarder” isn’t working right now.
Your points too are all “what if?”.
This is the main point – don’t be so patronising all the time and just think you have to hand over a life to anybody who turns up from bad circumstances. Give them medical aid if it’s needed but give them the opportunity to know that if they work hard then they can do great things. It’s counterproductive to just go “we have to give them everything they want for free”. My family never did this and from our hardship and through our hard work we got to where we are now. Also, have them integrate into this country or I’ll tell you right now, you are going to create tension in the long term.
You also seem to have a patronising attitude towards people like myself; you appear from where I am reading to have a genuinely good heart and perhaps not a weak mind. Though you need to start thinking about facts, practical results and how the world works and how everything fits together and where it may lead – instead of a pretty image which is built on handouts. I think you know what I mean anyway.
Oioioi2, I was waiting for some comment like yours from somebody. It’s cheap and predictable to just be like “you are probably all from Britain” and its’ tiresome even to read. More deserving, honourable and hard working?
We where given *equal* opportunity to make lives for ourselves and through our hard work we went from where we where to where we are. This wasn’t done on handouts at everybody else’s expense, it was done through Australia providing the *chance* though at the same time not asking everybody else to pay for our continued existence. This kind of attitude helps make this country what it is, not handouts. All my other points are above.
A firm but fair system and my own family and other families like ours are examples of its success.
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Look newsobserver, it's not what if mate, it's what the vast majority of refugees end up doing.
That's why they come here mate, to get jobs, so they can raise their children, and provide them with a good life.
That's all most people want.
I have never, ever said "giving them all everything for free, for getting over the boarder". Ever. That would be stupid.
I in fact said exactly what your asying.
That they deserve the opportunity to get a job, work hard, make a living, raise their kids and live in peace. Just like you and I do.
The thing is that I am being practical, far more practical than you realise. We are wasting billions of dollars coming up with crazy solutions to house these people in other countries, when at the end of the day the majority of them end up here anyway (that's right, the vast majority end up here anyway).
And do you know why our poltiicans do it? Because they want to get re-elected, that's all. It's a popular issue to despise boat people and lay all kinds of blame at their feet (which is insanley ridiculous, considering they number a few thousand in total). See I think you're not being practical, you're getting worked up about a few odd thousand people who will not affect your life one way or the other.
See politicans know it's not a real problem, and they wouldn't waste their time with it if it didn't affect their approval ratings so badly.
You talk about these people with the assumptiont that they're gonna spend all their time here getting free stuff. Where do you think this free stuff is coming from? You don't think they're gonna have the same financial and social oblgiations and responsibilites you and I have?
Mate I'm glad your family came here and found the opportunity they were looking for to make a better life for themselves and you through hard work and dedication.
That's fantastic, and you have every right to be proud of that.
That's all these people want too. Why are your parents any more entitled to it than they are?
The only reason it was so much easier for your parents to get here is that they were white people, during a period of Australian history when white people got an easy entry to this country.
And think about that, your parents actually got it easier than these people. Not when they got here, certainly, but in getting here, absolutley.
And in terms of integrating them, when I read that what I think you're actually saying is "They need to be more like me, and my family, and other middle class white people or that will create tension."
There's always tension mate, always social change and upheaval, it's part of life.
The Irish created alot of tension when they got here amte, and they changed the national culture. You think we should have thrown them all out, or forced them to be more British?
The Italians and Greeks created alot of tension too, should we burn down Carlton and Liechardt and throw them out, cuz they aren't Aussie enough?
Mate I know these are extreme examples, and I'm sure you wouldn't advocate them, but I'm pointing them out to illustrate how ridiculous your fears are.
Just cuz these people are different doesn't make it bad mate. It's fine.
Everything will be fine. You wouldn't notice one way or the other if these people stayed here or Indonesia. Your life is gonna work out almost exactly the same either way. Theirs won't though, and that's the key here.
Also, who appointed you arbiter of what Australian culture is, and what makes you think you can defend it from anyone for anyone but yourself? You certainly aren't speaking for me, and our perceptions of Australian culture are obviously very different.
In terms of the economics of it, more people in this country means a larger market, means more wealth, means more jobs.
Further to that, the vast majority of refugees everywhere end up working tough, menial jobs for low pay.
In terms of uneployment, we have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world. There's still plenty of jobs despite the financial crisis.
Further to that jobs actually create more jobs, it's basic economics mate.
Also, the fact that you think that a few thousand people are gonna affect our unemplyment rates one way or the other in a work force of many millions of people, suggests to me that you really haven't thought this whole economic argument through.
Just in absolute personal terms, how many refugees have come applying for your job lately mate? My guess would be none.
If you're really concerned about people harming this country economically, direct your anger towards the US and European financial markets. The few thousand refugees who got here on boats certainly don't have the influence, population or money to affect our economy one way or the other.
If a guy can put his whole life on his back, struggle across oceans and countries in a potentially deadly journey, using his life savings and risking everything with no garuntee of success just for the opportunity to work a low paying job to support his family, Ill take him any day over some spoilt pommy backpacker who's decided to live here despite only having a tourist visa, cuz he likes the weather.
And by the way mate, I may come across as patronising, but I'm simply expressing my views. I wouldn't bother replying if I didn't repect your opinion at least a little and in no way am I personally insulting you.
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This is getting bothersome.
You just don’t seem to get it and in fact many people like you don’t seem to get it. I’ve made these points over and over again and you either aren’t reading them, or you are countering them with retorts of little real substance.
This isn’t a land of gumdrops and lollypops where you can take in every single last person, the country looks big on a *map* though it’s actually not that “big” at all in terms of the global scheme.
The saying “from small things, big things come” rings true here because you just don’t realise that there are *millions* of potential refugees in the world and you cant take them all, you must look out for your own nation first and that is what people such as yourself will *never* understand. It isn’t about race, it’s about values and those people who hold them.
Somehow you will think you are a horrible person if you don’t want to hand over so many things and make so many concessions for anybody who comes into the country and demands ‘asylum’. Anybody who doesn’t want to do this (even if they are from immigrants themselves) must suddenly be a horrible person and then you’ll pull some obvious retort of “oh so you are probably white” (as if you can somehow tell what colour my skin is and where I am from) and *that* right there I find patronising as being descended from immigrants and saying that perhaps everybody should work to get what they have (it also seems to imply only people of a certain country can have that attitude). Then curiously, you and those like you seem to think you have a single clue what my family went through or where they came from.
Give them the same government treatment immigrants to here got years ago when they came from hardship. No government handouts and the occasional racial remark from somebody as you walk down the street. The first comment here made by murph73v2 rings true again, you just don’t seem to get it. Even when somebody who’s from immigrants is doing the best he can to explain it to you.
It’s because you simply want to give them *more* of an opportunity simply for showing up, instead of giving them a system and saying they can make it in life if they choose to work but they cant cry and demand those who used to be in their shoes, come back and give them things for free.
You also make a point of mentioning a problem, then saying that *another* problem is bigger so the first one shouldn’t be regarded.
Regardless, all the best.
Thank you Nick Bryant for allowing me to comment.
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JPWallace why are you bothering. You may as well be speaking to Wilson Tuckey!
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A predictable comment and also expected.
Now that common sense has won the day, from the others side it’s going to be continued straw-man arguments, missing of points, emotional reactions, demonising and labelling.
Thank you Nick Bryant for allowing me to comment.
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I enjoy it mate, it's a good way to pass the work day.
Plus I have this theory that if you hammer away at a close minded person, maybe, just maybe a little crack of empathy might come through.
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I am sorry if I have offended you newsobserver with my trite comments but I you are so right that I just have no sensible answer to your fact laden statements.
I suggest If you feel so strongly about these demanding lazy people that you start a political movement to do something about them. You could call it One Nation.
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Demographic studies show that refugees/migrants don't sponge but rely heavily on social networks within their own communities whilst they are setting up their lives. It takes less than a generation for migrants to upgrade and branch out to other areas more representative of the Australian population. This has avoided the ghettoes and their associated problems. It is also why schemes to place refugees in rural areas is doomed to fail. More governmental incentives for all Australians should be launched to encourage relocation to provincial cities. I'm all for going through the right channels migration. These despicable people smugglers are literally getting away with murder; burning boats doesn't go far enough.
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“I am sorry if I have offended you newsobserver with my trite comments but I you are so right that I just have no sensible answer to your fact laden statements.”
That’s ok, just make sure you don’t do it again and you have your facts in order next time you type. I don’t hold any hard feelings against you.
“I suggest if you feel so strongly about these demanding lazy people that you start a political movement to do something about them”
Empowering people to work to get a better place in life instead of hoping people give it to you for free from their own belongings? Seems like a good idea to me. You could also (seeing as you care about them so very deeply) lead the way in helping them, by giving them some of *your* stuff instead of trying to force everybody else to. Lead by example etc.
“You could call it One Nation.”
Pity, now we’re treading into straw-man, emotional reaction, demonising and labelling territory. You seem to imply that wanting to work hard instead of demanding handouts is a strictly white/British thing to do and instead you must pander to new arrivals and those from them like my own family and instead of assuming we’re capable of working ourselves, we have to be watched and cooed over by patronising people like you who want to make it so everybody else must follow in your stead and we supposedly cant make our own way without condescending assistance. Then if somebody or this country doesn’t like that idea then despite even letting us have the opportunity to be here to do great things, it’s full of bad people.
Then if we promote values of this nation such as hard work to get to better places….somehow we’re part of a party which wouldn’t be likely even to like us.
Thanks for making me feel welcome.
Thanks too, to Nick Bryant for allowing me to comment.
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Australia needs to quickly build to a population of 60 - 70 million for it to become a global economic powerhouse and assure the continuing prosperity of its people. It's not just a case of "Populate or Perish" as Chifley and Caldwell put it in the late 1940s, these days it is an economic reality, and Australia has the resources and the space to do it. So, let them land. Open the doors to all those dispossessed souls fleeing persecution and poverty in their countries of birth. We need more Aussies who recognise Australia is the land of the free and land of opportunity in this new and pregnant 21st Century - new Australians who can raise their families with pride as the latest in a wave of immigrants to this vast and wondrous land that began in 1788.
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No one is asking you to give refugees your stuff newsobserver.
You can keep your tv and bed and shoes and stuff.
That's what I keep telling you.
Showing a bit of kindness to these people won't cost you anything mate.
Not a cent.
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Nice article Nick. I agree with all your observations in this regard. Granted I haven't been in Sydney long but the rabid reaction to the boat people from most sections of the media & politicians is disturbing and I really hope it's not as virulent amongst the general population. obviously as a Paddy, Oz feels like a sunnier home from home for me but the media here really leaves a sour taste. TV news esp is very tabloidy and it seems to me they love these sort of 'scare the plebs' & 'the Asian hordes are coming' stories. After all, they'll sell more papers & get higher ratings by doing this. JPWallace's posting on 22/10 @ 10.22 (ha!) was great to read and tbh pretty much all Aussies I've met here are laid back and not fascist, then again this is Sydney which is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world alongside the likes of London & NY. I cant say if these opinions in the hinterland are shared.
Aussies in general need to remember that the 2000-odd boat people a year (this year) is nothing compared to Italy (with 30,000 or so). The vast majority of both illegal & legal aliens who work here work their backsides off (as they do in my own country) and help the economy. That fact aside, asylum seekers cannot be described as 'illegals' and I think it's just a handy, nasty little word for the more conservative types......you can spot them a mile away when they start their point with something like 'i'm not racist, BUT....'. Ad hominems are another favourite tactic - 'you're a Marxist lefty liberal' I noticed in the very first post. At least the likes of Wilson Tuckey are honest when they spew their bile. I cant stick the other lot who attempt to hide their true feelings.
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#63
Italy is not a UNHCR resettlement country for refugees, are you aware of this programme for refugees? The US Canada and Australia are the main countries to offer the UN each year resettlement for refugees currently in UN refugee camps, Australia's annual quota is 13,000. That's equivalent on a population basis to Italy's 30,000 who arrive by using smugglers
That was one of the arguments heard here - that the people smugglers divert 'places' from the UNHCR resettlement programme
The worrying issue about Italy, though, is the rise of the Far Right, in fact it might be 1 reason to try and keep Berlosconi in office, the alternative might be worse! Worrying because this is a country that only has 5% immigrants but has a sizeable influx of unauthorised arrivals
The UK seems to be experiencing similar with the rise of the BNP
As I read it, the Australian electorate will accept exceptionally large numbers of immigrants (24% of the population) but wants the government to control immigration. Rudd would remember Hanson and her anti immigrant notions in the 1990s, though she has been a spent force for the last decade. He would also be aware of the rise of the Right in Europe
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