Socialist Alliance says: End locking up of refugees!

BY ALISON DELLIT

As the 2001 federal election approaches, immigration minister Philip Ruddock has signalled that the government intends to make racist scapegoating of refugees a central part of its re-election strategy.

Launching the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) annual discussion paper on illegal immigration, “Protecting the Borders” on April 25, Ruddock began a tirade against refugees who arrive in Australia without papers, arguing that they were “forcing” the government to cut Australia’s annual intake of United Nations’ allocated refugees.

At the moment, Australia accepts just 12,000 refugees a year. In theory, half of these are allocated by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees from among those who are waiting in camps (mostly in the Third World). The other half are sponsored by family and friends in Australia, under the special humanitarian asylum program.

Two days after the policy launch, Ruddock slashed the special humanitarian program, from 6000 to 3000, arguing that on-shore applicants had “stolen” places from “needy” overseas refugees.

Ruddock followed this move up on May 2 by announcing the setting up of a review into whether Australia’s interpretation of “political persecution” was too generous, specifying for example the inclusion of those fleeing persecution from organised crime as something he would like to see removed as valid grounds for the granting of asylum.

On May 11, DIMA again authorised the use of tear gas to quell a demonstration of more than 100 refugees at Port Hedland. No media were allowed to film the protest or interview the protesting refugees, some of whom were immediately moved into jail.

Not all refugees wanting asylum in Australia are able to apply from overseas. In fact, many fleeing political persecution will attempt too get to the most permanent refuge as quickly as possible. Thus, a large number of refugees are prepared to risk their lives in an attempt to get to Australia and make an application here.

To Ruddock’s frustration, Australia is still obliged, under the 1959 United Nations convention on refugees, to investigate all on-shore claims for political asylum, and offer refuge to those needing it.

Increase in 'boat people’

The last five years have seen a substantial increase in refugees arriving in Australia by boat (although this has been somewhat offset by a decrease in air arrivals). The majority of those who arrive in Australia in this way come from Iraq and Afghanistan.

The number of Iraqi refugees has increased substantially due to the deterioration in living conditions in their country resulting from the impact of the Australian-backed United Nations economic sanctions. Afghanistan, under the brutal control of the ruling Taliban militia, is now producing more refugees than any other country in Asia.

The other factor increasing the number of refugee arrivals in Australia is the tightening, under the Howard government, of the family reunion program, the major source of Third World legal migration into Australia. Amnesty International believes that an increasing number of refugees arriving in Australia have family members who have already fled persecution to Australia.

By limiting legal Third World migration, the federal government has forced thousands of refugees into unsafe boats in order to attempt to build a life free from fear.

The government is prepared to go to extreme lengths to destroy sympathy within the general population for refugees. One of the most despicable ways this is done is through the repeated implication that refugees arriving in Australia are not “genuine” refugees, and that they are somehow “stealing” a life in Australia away from other refugees who are patiently waiting in camps overseas.

The government’s attacks on refugees are likely to increase as the federal election approaches. As more and more people are suffering under the impact of industry deregulation, lengthening work hours and a highly inequitable tax system, the government is looking for marginalised groups in the community to blame for falling living standards.

In 1996, the emphasis was on “privileged” Aborigines who were draining the welfare budget. In 1998 it shifted marginally to legal immigrants who were taking “our jobs”. Now it rests firmly on the shoulders of refugees, who both eat up social security money and steal “our” jobs.

Responding to these attacks, refugee activists have gone on the offensive, calling a national day of action for June 3, to demand the closure of the refugee camps and the diversion of resources away from mandatory detention and into resettlement funding. Some of these activists also intend to take the campaign for refugee rights into the federal election campaign this year. Green Left Weekly spoke to two activists who were involved in the formation of the Socialist Alliance and are organising June 3 demonstrations in solidarity with the refugees.

Paul Benedek is an activist in Sydney’s Free the Refugees Campaign (FRC). He is also the secretary of the western Sydney branch of the Democratic Socialist Party. Judy McVey, from Melbourne’s Refugee Action Collective, is a member of the International Socialist Organisation. The DSP and the ISO were the initiators of the Socialist Alliance project.

Passionate

Benedek is passionate about the need to build support for the refugees, “FRC is based on demanding full rights for refugees. This means the closure of the detention centres, the end to mandatory detention and putting the money that is currently given to Australasian Correctional Management to the refugees themselves to fund resettlement. Refugees should be recognised as permanent residents and not further punished when they arrive in Australia.”

McVey agreed, pointing out that the government’s campaign against the refugees impacts on the whole population. "Because it is being done as government policy, it affects every aspect of our lives, setting a tone for how people should treat others seeking help. Many people have said to me, of the detention centres — 'This is the kind of future the Liberals want for all of us'. Racism divides people and lets the government off the hook for their attacks on all working class people.”

“We are already seeing an escalation of savage verbal attacks backed up by more repression in the detention centres”, said McVey. “Facing a massive defeat at the next election, the Liberals are desperate to try to win the One Nation support base in the electorates — their last gasp is the race card. This means more racism and scapegoating of refugees to distract attention from their brutal attacks on the working class and poor.

“The GST in particular has wrecked the lives of the unemployed and pensioners as well as the working poor. The Liberals encourage workers to blame the least powerful — refugees, single mothers and the unemployed — rather than government policy.”

Benedek explained that he sees the Socialist Alliance campaign as essential to countering this scapegoating. “In the federal election”, he said, “people will be faced with a Liberal government that has eagerly attacked refugee rights, and a Labor opposition which supports the same policies. That’s why socialists need to raise a pro-refugee rights voice during the election.”

McVey agrees that the ALP are part of the problem. “The Labor Party”, she said, “is playing a shameful role backing up more repression against the protesting refugees in Port Hedland and Curtin.” The ALP has “continued to give bipartisan support to the policy of mandatory detention and temporary protection visas.” McVey noted that it was the previous Labor government that built the first of the remote detention centres, at Port Hedland in 1992, and introduced mandatory detention for all refugees arriving in Australia without papers, by boat.

“Shadow employment and education minister Martin Ferguson, at a meeting in Thornbury on May 11, referred to these people as 'illegals’. Yet according to both UN and Australian law, people who travel to Australia without papers seeking asylum are not breaking any law, so long as they apply for asylum. We need to get out there and expose the ALP on this issue, because most rank and file Labor members don’t support it, as we have discovered speaking at ALP branch meetings. Ferguson made it clear he will not support a change in ALP policy before or after the election.”

Socialist Alliance

Although McVey and Benedek agree that the Greens and the Democrats are better on the refugee issue, Benedek explained how the Socialist Alliance is different “We don’t think that things will change through winning a few seats, or by the efforts of a few politicians. The activists that I see out there fighting for refugees on the ground, these are people who are joining the Alliance.

The Socialist Alliance thinks that the actions of tens of thousands of people on the ground, people supporting demonstrating refugees in the centres, is the real thing that will force a change in policy of both the Liberals and the opposition.”

Visit the Socialist Alliance web page at <http://www.socialist-alliance.org>.