Fourteen refugees arrive, 4000 islands depart!

by Peter Mac

When a boat carrying 14 asylum seekers arrived at Melville Island 
last week the Howard Government rushed to introduce retrospective 
regulations excising Melville and some 4000 other islands from 
Australia's immigration zone.

The Government's move would be comical if it wasn't part of their 
harsh treatment of those seeking asylum in Australia and a 
cynical political exercise to make political capital it hopes 
will, once again, help it win an election.

As part of this game the Government is punishing asylum seekers 
for the "crime" of arriving by unorthodox means.

It is likely that the Senate will block the move to excise the 
islands but the Prime Minister has deliberately linked the 
arrival of asylum seekers with a move to ban two organisations 
accused of terrorism and hysterically accuses the opposition of 
obstructing laws that would protect the nation from unwelcome 
visitors.

The new Minister for Immigration, Senator Vanstone, stated that 
the Melville Island arrivals would never be able to apply for 
asylum in Australia. She claimed that the new regulations would 
still be legally valid for the period between the Government's 
announcement and their rejection by the Senate, should this 
occur.

Since her announcement the Government has used the navy to escort 
the boat carrying the asylum seekers back to an Indonesian port. 
Their plight is to be foisted onto Indonesia or some other 
country while the Australian Government shows no mercy and no 
humanity.

The Government has trotted out the usual line about "queue-
jumpers", even though as the shadow opposition spokesperson for 
immigration has noted, there actually is no such queue.

Any thought that the release of Abdullah Kadem and agreement that 
his children would be permitted to rejoin him in Australia means 
a change in policy was immediately dashed by this incident.

The new Immigration Minister Senator Vanstone has signalled that 
she intends to be every bit as ruthless as her predecessor, 
Phillip Ruddock.

The government pointed out with ill-concealed satisfaction that 
none of the Tampa refugees was successful in applying for refugee 
status. Senator Vanstone admitted that her department had made no 
provision for assessment of the medical condition of the most 
recent boatload of 14 refugees.

"If there's anyone in need of treatment I'd assume that the naval 
officers will do the right thing and provide assistance", she 
stated airily.

Meanwhile, Ruddock has taken his anti-asylum seeker obsessions 
with him to his new portfolio as Attorney-General. Last week he 
claimed that the surge in the running costs of the Attorney-
General's department was caused by large numbers of asylum 
seekers mounting court challenges to his government's refusal of 
refugee status.

The surge in costs arises from the Government's policy of 
refusing many applicants an option to seek redress except through 
legal channels.

The UN Commission for Refugees last week stated that the 
Government was obliged to process the latest asylum seekers. The 
Government assured UN officials that it intended to abide by its 
UN treaty obligations, but immediately equivocated by saying that 
it was considering sending the refugees to Indonesia, Nauru or 
Christmas Island.

Despite a new report claiming that the Government is sending 
asylum seekers back to death, imprisonment and or torture in 
their countries of origin, and that some are sent back despite 
their suicidal condition, the Government remains determined to 
remove any rights asylum seekers have under current law. And if 
this means excising Melville and thousands of other islands from 
the immigration zone, so be it, they say.

Democrats leader Andrew Bartlett pointed out that retrospective 
legislation that reduces people's rights is legally invalid. The 
Government is also reported to have decided to make Melville 
Island a flight exclusion zone, a move designed to exclude the 
media from on-the-spot coverage of the latest asylum seeker saga.

"The principle behind the Government's desire to excise parts of 
Australia from the migration zone is the same as what the USA 
uses for Guantanamo Bay — trying to put people beyond the reach 
of the courts and the rule of law", he said.

One wonders how long it will be before the Federal Government's 
paranoid behaviour leads it to excise the whole of Australia as 
well.