REVIEW BY SHANE HOPKINSON
The Future Seekers: Refugees and the Law in Australia
By Mary Crock and Ben Saul
Federation Press 2002
152 pages, $24.95
Order at <http://www.fedpress.aust.com/
Books/CrockFutSeek.html>
The Future Seekers is a must-read book for anyone involved in the campaign for refugees' rights. It dispels a number of the myths being spread by politicians intent on scapegoating refugees. The authors offer a wealth of valuable information on the law as it relates to refugees' rights in a very accessible and readable form.
Mary Crock, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney, and Ben Saul, a legal officer at the Australian Law Reform Commission, point out that while the "common-sense" definition of a refugee is someone who flees an intolerable situation (be it persecution, natural disaster or civil war), under the law the definition is much narrower.
The 1951 United Nations refugee convention defines refugees as people outside their home country who are unable or unwilling to return because of a "well-founded fear of persecution" for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Australia has a duty to protect such people from persecution under international law, regardless of how they have arrived. People who seek the protection of the law in this way are asylum seekers.
There is a global system of protection for such people, who number about 22 million, administered by the UN. Many are in refugee camps around the world, from where the UN seeks third countries that will accept them. Australia currently admits about 4,000 refugees from these "offshore" sources each year. Australia maintains overseas missions in only 75 of the more than 200 countries of the world, and only 30 have immigration officers.
Australia has accepted 650,000 refugees since the second world war.
Recently, the federal government has begun to scapegoat the small number of asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat, labelling them "queue-jumpers" and "illegals", implying that they are not legitimate asylum seekers and are taking the place of "real" refugees who come through the offshore sources.
Compared to other countries, a small number of asylum seekers enter the country without permission. Most of those who are in Australia illegally are people who overstay their visas (about 50,000 people at any one time). A much smaller number enter without permission each year (about 1700 by plane and 4200 by boat).
The Future Seekers examines the history of "boat people" in Australia. It notes that in the 1970s the Australian government accepted refugees from Indochina who arrived in this way, but now demonises Iraqis and Afghans, the majority of whose claims for refugee status have been accepted in the past, as "queue-jumpers".
The government and media have used refugees who arrive by boat to create fears of an "invasion". In 1998, a survey showed that the average respondent believed that 70 times more boat people arrived each year than was really the case.
Asylum seekers who arrive by boat are now having their legal rights restricted (for example, restrictions on their right to appeal and being granted temporary protection visas instead of permanent residence) and are being subjected to mandatory detention. Australia's discriminatory, arbitrary and inhumane treatment has been criticised for being in breach of international standards.
Crock and Saul outline in detail the legal procedures in Australia for determining a person's refugee status, and the enormous difficulties faced by asylum seekers in this regard. The authors' critique of the policy of mandatory detention makes the clear point that it is an administrative measure that deprives people of their liberty even though they have been convicted of no offence. This is at odds with the basis of the criminal justice system which requires proof and a court-imposed sentence.
The recently passed Border Protection Act has no precedent in Australian law, but was supported by both Coalition and Labor federal MPs (with Greens and Democrats opposed). The Future Seekers dedicates a chapter to exploring the implications of this act, which extends the power of the government and retrospectively legalises the military boarding of the MV Tampa and the refusal of asylum to those on board.
The act narrowed the definition of a refugee even further, created the restricted temporary protection visas that limit refugees' rights (for example, they are denied the right of family reunion that applies to other migrants) and, most bizarrely, redefined the boundaries of Australia for immigration purposes. All this amounts to the creation of a system of unequal justice for asylum seekers based on their method of entry.
In the final chapter, Crock and Saul argue for a "fair go" for refugees. They call for the economic, political and cultural contribution made by refugees to Australia to recognised. The authors suggest the best way to solve the refugee "problem" is to increase Australia's commitment to the international system of refugee protection, which is being increasingly undermined and under-resourced globally. They urge the implementation of a community release scheme as a cheaper and more humane alternative to detention for people who pose no threat to Australia.
From Green Left Weekly, August 21, 2002.
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