Hello Mr Bowen
I know that the media will keep your eyes focussed on this important area of government policy in the new year and I suppose I am expecting that there will be no major shift in your current policy direction - seeking to secure an off-shore processing option but in the mean time processing asylum-seekers on-shore as required by law.
I have never been happy with the way the Rudd/Gillard party has enacted this area of policy in government. I was never happy with the way Howard government enacted this area of policy. There have, however, been some glimmers of hope and good practice along the way and from time to time, so it is not all bad. Most particularly, I thank you for so readily moving towards community-based models for the care of asylum-seekers while their claims are being fully assessed. As Patrick McGorry said, our immigration detention centres are factories for psychiatric illness and we should aim to get people out of them as quickly as possible. I dread the thought that in a generation's time the Federal Government will be needing to say "Sorry" for the consequences of these actions of government in our day.
I wonder if I could offer you some new year's thoughts for consideration.
1. GLOBAL SOLUTIONS TO GLOBAL PROBLEMS
It has occurred to me for a long time that both the media and the political analysts have been blind to the most significant push factor that is driving people onto unseaworthy boats bound for our shores. This is the issue of HOPE. Ever more draconian policies that are designed to extinguish hope will do nothing more than increase the power of this push factor. Think of the situation for asylum-seekers in Malaysia. I can't find the exact number of people living in limbo there - is it 100,000? is it more? - whatever it is it is a vast number of people. And that is just one of many countries in which refugees languish in camps. We know that people from some countries have been told plainly that they will never be offered places to go. Others wait for years and years. Thousands die while waiting. In such HOPELESS situations is it any wonder that people take extraordinary risks to improve their chances of survival and resettlement?
Clearly, the policy that is most likely to deter people taking such risks is one that INCREASES their HOPE of resettlement and thus their willingness to wait their turn. Understandably, Australia can't act on this alone, and in many ways the UN is either unwilling or ill-equipped to take a lead. The UN has given the world a legal framework by which we determine the status of people, but it is up to the nations to offer resettlement. Even your proposed "Regional Processing Centre" is of little value if it is not backed up by an increase in the number of resettlements being offered.
This is indeed a global problem and it therefore demands a global solution. How do we persuade more nations to offer resettlement to asylum-seekers? Getting more countries on board to offer perhaps a million more humanitarian placements each year would begin to INCREASE the HOPE quotient and thus stem the business plan of the people smugglers.
So long as you adopt policies that seek more and more draconian measures to stop the boats, you will rely on demonizing innocent people almost all of whom are deserving of our protection, not hatred.
2. LOCAL POLITICS
So far as our local political scene goes, I have to admit that the tussle between you and the Opposition, (which I prefer to call the NOalition) to come up with the harshest position has been completely unedifying and it diminishes the quality of your credentials as politicians.
I believe that this policy area has been the biggest single factor in the bleeding of political support from your party in support of the GREENS and yet you are making no policy adjustments that might woo them back towards you. In fact you are making policy adjustments that are driving them deeper into the arms of the GREENS. I don't get that as a political strategy.
Those of us (yes I count myself as one) who have moved towards the GREENS over the past two or three elections have done so because of a perception that the party of the left that cares about compassionate social policy is no longer the Australian Labor Party. Indeed, there are times when it is really hard to distinguish it at a policy level from the Tories in the NOalition.
Given the circumstances in which you all retained government after the next election I was expecting a clearer policy shift aimed at reclaiming this lost territory than has been evident in the 12 months or so that you have been in power. I can't fathom the logic of your policy advisers who have failed to consider this strategy - but there you are; perhaps that explains why I am not in politics.
CAN WE HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR?
So I leave you with these thoughts of mine. I am not a person of great consequence, nor do I have any power, political or otherwise, but I have a heart. I care about the detrimental effects government policy can have on the most vulnerable people in our country and wider world. As a citizen of this nation, and hopefully a good citizen of our world, I would like to see some leadership in this area of refugee and immigration policy that will make me even more proud to be an Aussie.
