Another horrific tragedy has struck a group of refugees taking the final-resort option of boarding an unseaworthy boat to try to reach Australia in search of asylum.
Dozens were feared to have drowned when a boat carrying about 70 mostly Afghan and Iranian refugees sank off the coast of Java, Indonesia, on November 1.
The boat capsized after taking on water for about two hours at about 5am local time, the Herald Sun said.
Eight people, including two women and four children, were confirmed dead by November 2 and at least 20 more were still missing, the Age said.
But even as the search for survivors and the dead continued, Australian politicians’ foul political bashing of asylum seekers kicked in.
Immigration minister Chris Bowen said the purpose of the Labor government’s defunct Australia-Malaysia refugee swap plan was supposed to prevent these “tragic deaths at sea”.
He told the ABC that Labor’s plan to expel 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia to Malaysia was “an effective deterrent.”
“Until and unless we are able to implement that, we will see more boats arriving,” he said.
Home affairs minister Brendan O’Connor said “too many people [are] lured onto unseaworthy vessels” and Australia needed “the strongest deterrent to prevent people smugglers plying their trade”.
The government put pressure on the Coalition to agree to legislation stripping human rights and protections from the Migration Act to legalise the swap with Malaysia.
Liberal Party immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison said it was not the time to have this “political discussion”.
But the two main parties’ disingenuous displays of sympathy and concern are overshadowed by recent anti-refugee policies pushed by the two big parties, which will lead to the suffering of thousands more refugees.
On November 1, Labor and Liberal MPs passed through the lower house amendments that toughened Australia’s already draconian “people smuggling” laws.
The amendment changes the law from saying it is illegal to transport to Australia anyone who “has no lawful right to come to the country” to include anyone “without a valid visa”.
It will be applied retrospectively to the Migration Act back to 1999, and was hastily drafted and put to parliament to destroy the legal case of an Indonesian man trying to fight “people smuggling” charges in Victoria.
Victoria Legal Aid lawyer Saul Holt, who represents 20-year-old accused “people smuggler” Jeky Payara, said Payara’s case before the court was to argue that asylum seekers had a lawful right to enter Australia under domestic and international laws.
Holt told ABC radio’s PM: “The new legislation targets this case specifically and it means that our argument can’t win, because legislation is passed retrospectively to apply to all historical cases of people smuggling, to say that a lawful right to come to Australia is only related to the holding of a visa.”
Holt said the amendment will affect the cases of about 350 mostly Indonesian people held in Australian prisons on people-smuggling charges. Australia’s minimum mandatory sentence for such a conviction is five years.
Criminalising the act of travelling to Australia “without a valid visa” will also hold significant consequences for asylum seekers. It contradicts the UN convention on the status of refugees, which says it is legal to seek asylum in a country whether a person holds documents or a visa.
Growing numbers of refugees are resorting to the harrowing journey across the sea, as global refugee numbers rise and obtaining resettlement in a safe country becomes harder.
But neither government nor opposition, in their false remorse over the latest tragedy, mentioned the government’s recent decision not to boost its refugee resettlement intake.
Such a measure would guarantee safe passage to Australia for more refugees who would otherwise be forced to wait years in much poorer countries that rarely have refugee rights protections or take the dangerous sea voyage.
Before the Australia-Malaysia refugee swap was ruled invalid by the High Court, Australia planned to boost its humanitarian immigration intake by 1000 places each year to resettle 4000 refugees from Malaysia over four years.
But after the plan failed, Labor said it would still accept the 4000 refugees from Malaysia, but would no longer raise the humanitarian intake at all, keeping it to a historic low of 13,750 people each year.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says that in Indonesia there are more than 3000 refugees waiting for resettlement to a safe country, and more than 90,000 displaced people in Malaysia that the agency knows of.
More than 1.1 million Afghan people live permanently displaced by war and instability. Population displacement is a problem that is growing worldwide.
Deterrents such as offshore processing — whether on Nauru, Manus Island or Malaysia — will not stop people forced to flee for their safety.
Toughening border control policies and criminalising attempts by asylum seekers to reach Australia is what leads to refugees boarding boats that too often sink or vanish.
The only way to “deter” people from boarding boats is to provide the funds and resources to significantly boost offshore refugee intake and assess, accept and transport these refugees, so they don’t have to risk their lives at sea.