Refugee Policies

I’d like to weigh in on this issue.

Perhaps the most fundamental problem with Australian politics at the moment is that the major parties are not interested in doing right by the country, but are instead interested simply in being in power. This issue is not all that new, but it has reached an extreme in the advanced western economies. Life is so good here that there are no serious political issues (besides climate change). Gone are the days of pitched ideological battles; everyone just wants to chill out. In such an environment, what could the politicians possibly want for the country? A young labour party hack who I know (decent enough bloke I should say) recently summed it up for me:

“All the old ideological battles have been won. We have a high minimum wage, a strong welfare safety net, socialised health care, workplace rights, an industrial relations tribunal, maternity leave, paid leave, a 35 hour week, sick leave, superannuation contributions etc. Life is good and so there is no need for a great socialist revolution. Sure there are classes, but dock workers earn $34 an hour, so even the lower class is living well.”

In this policy vacuum, individuals enter politics not because they care deeply about doing what’s right by the country, but because politics is a glamorous career. We are getting career politicians instead of professional governors, even instead of passionate governors.

It is important to keep this in mind when we analyse the refugee issue. Both major parties are interested in being in power for its own sake, rather than because of what they would like to do with that power. Hence, they are totally committed to marginal electorates and the policies that are popular there, rather than the policies that would be in the best interests of the country more generally. Now as those electorates are populated by racists, we have a disgusting refugee policy. The Greens are winning huge numbers of senate votes, but as this doesn’t actually take the major parties out of power, they don’t particularly care. Until their stronghold seats start to be effected by narrowly targeted policies they will continue to pander to marginal electorates. Hopefully the election of a greens representative to the traditional labour seat of Melbourne has sent off some alarm bells.

The last federal election fits well with this analysis. The majority of Australians, disgusted by the lack of vision or balls on the part of both parties, decided to vote for neither. The greens received a landslide of support, as did independents.

There is another issue here which foreigners often bring up, which is why we don’t simply process people onshore, where they can get their rights. To my mind, onshore processing would be the best solution. You could have a logbook at the front gate and so when people came and went you could check for any suspicious activity, otherwise they would be free humans with dignity.

I can, however, understand the argument that offshore processing is required because people smuggling endangers lives and cannot be encouraged by allowing boat operators to arrive in Australia. However, the current solutions are pathetic and abhorrent. Stopping the boats does not alleviate the fact that thousands of refugees are stranded in South East Asia. I don’t see why we couldn’t have our own regional processing centres in South East Asia and if people were approved as refugees we couldn’t put them on safe Australian vessels and bring them over. At the end of the day, all refugee policies to date have been faintly veiled racism.

The situation is starting to reach farcical proportions where the PM has recently called on Tony Abbot to join her in overriding the high court’s verdict on the Malaysia solution (and the separation of powers along with it) in order to allow the government to legislate on the matter.