Stop the boats: human rights wrong

I can’t help but cringe on the inside when I see customers become irate in lengthy queues or god forbid be given something they didn’t order… and why is it that some of these people feel that their behaviour is more excusable then the behaviour of…I don’t know… an asylum seeker in a detention centre whose application is clogged up in a long queue for years?

I have heard many people’s views on asylum seekers and I am often surprised by the negativity that spills out of those who feel that asylum seekers are somehow taking something away from them or imposing on them in some way. Either way it always comes across as something personal and horrible.

It is unfortunate that Australia has fought so hard against the tide of humanitarianism especially when I hoped we had learnt from our mistakes and would never repeat our country’s infamous history in the horrendous treatment of Indigenous Australians.

We had grown and had goodwill towards others, to help those in need…. hadn’t we??

In the past the Fraser government helped a lot of people fleeing from Vietnam into the country during the first tide of boat arrivals in the 1970’s. And so we should have, being a part of the Vietnam War we contributed to the distress it caused to the people. However, by the time the second wave of boat arrivals came from Cambodia we shut the doors and denied their claims even though they were fleeing from genocide and unrest in their country.

Next the Keating government decided to put asylum seekers in detention, indefinitely. Forget about the secondary movers, sure it is hard to get to Australia but they should really do it in one move… not two.

What is this nonsense about people fleeing from persecution because of government population policies i.e. China’s one child policy? Nope, lets send them home too, in fact how about we make an arrangement with that country and ask them nicely to not hurt those returning. We can sign something just to make sure.

Not to be outdone by the previous government policies the Howard government created task force upon task force upon task force to physically tow backs boats to Indonesia if they came any where near Australian waters. Oh and if they did come any where near us they wouldn’t be setting foot on Australian soil roared the PM who sent away 1500 asylum seekers to Nauru and Papa New Guinea but not before giving these governments – and I use the word government loosely – a wad full of cash ($250million+) for their troubles.

These countries aren’t signatories to the United Nations Refugee Convention BUT Jakarta who also happens to NOT be a signatory did lease a teeny little office to the UN where they processed the thousands of refugee applicants. Next we trained the Indonesian National Police to detain anyone who did not have travel documents and to set up asylum seekers by pretending to be people smugglers and when the money was exchanged… the asylum seekers were detained. We also spent heaps of dough on surveillance and intelligence so that when boats were heading our way we’d know and then we would tow them back to the edge of Indonesian waters to let them go. Somehow the equipment failed to provide any information on whether the boats actually returned to Indonesian shores safely and the government miraculously didn’t know anything about the 353 asylum seekers who drowned somewhere south of Jakarta. All we knew was that we towed back 4 boats and over 2000 asylum seekers to the edge of Indonesia waters and ‘gently’ nudged them somewhere in that direction.

Not surprisingly Captain Arne Rinnan and his crew from the Tampa freighter who rescued over 400 asylum seekers from a sinking vessel only to be denied authorisation from the Australian government were hailed heroes…. The UN gave those guys an award, a Nansen Refugee Award for their outstanding service to the cause of refugees because they stood up to our PM who was too busy deciding who comes into our country and in the circumstances in which they come.

So the boats kept coming and they continued to be turned around until the Rudd government stepped in and dismantled many of the Howard government policies and took another approach… but it still involved offshore processing.

The 2010 federal election dug up the Howard years on asylum policies and the coalition gloated their figures. They even affirmed their policy to reopen detention centres in Nauru, claimed they could stop the boats and would reintroduced TPV’s. The labor government skirted around the issues and rolled out a similar policy to that of the coalition. They were engaging in offshore processing centres that included discussions with East Timor and New Zealand who are signatories to the UN Refugee Convention and while that is a big plus it is also a huge minus as it is still offshore processing!

Offshore processing is a dud and an enormously expensive Howard policy that was implemented in haste.

The truth is no government has ever stopped the boats and the reality is no government can. I don’t know why we can’t extend our hand and help people who are desperate and are at risk, considering this is something we have committed to. We live in a country where we haven’t been subjected to these types of experiences and yet we are one of the biggest critics of how people should conduct themselves when they are trying to survive.

Who the hell are we to judge to people on how they should go about surviving?

Life or death situations generally do not come with a guidebook with instructions on ‘how it should be conducted in an orderly manner.’ Scared people do desperate things in order to survive, such as board an unseaworthy vessel and sail across the high seas to a country that isn’t even welcoming of them…

I think it can be as simple as this: if you order a coffee I will make it as quickly as I can for you. I won’t send you to some scungy café up the street just because I want to hand pick my customers. I won’t turn you around at the door. No, none of that because I have signed the Customers Convention that states something about serving your customers and being nice and I will honour that.

So what I will do is make you a nice coffee, offer some friendly chit chat, be open minded when you tell me something hideous about your day, give you somewhere comfy to sit and most of all I will not make any judgements on the lengths that you had to go to in order to survive your hideous morning/afternoon/evening.

Nope… not one!

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