Why my country sucks.

Sadly its all too true.



Attitude to 'illegals' borders on paranoia

By Susie O'Brien

Herald Sun
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26266033-5007146,00.html

October 27, 2009 12:01am

AUSTRALIA is not under siege from boat people. We are not being over-run by "illegals".
It's not boat people Australia needs to worry about. It's the closeted racism that comes out in many of us when issues like this flare up.

I'm not saying we should roll out the red carpet, but we shouldn't be acting like rednecks either.

But as the Federal Government prepares to move 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to Indonesian detention centres for processing, anti-refugee propaganda continues to dominate this debate.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull, for instance, says it's "too easy" for asylum seekers and that Australia is a "soft target".

And Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is also talking tough.

But stop and think about it.

Isn't accepting those affected by civil war, famine or poverty the hallmark of a civilised, compassionate country?

As I listen to dog-whistle pollies and hysterical callers to talkback radio, I can't believe how ignorant most of us are about refugees and asylum seekers.

And racist. Yes, some of them are clearly racist.

Forgotten in the political war of words about "illegal arrivals" and "boat people" is the fact that the majority of these people are just chasing a better life.

They're not Somali pirates, they're not Indonesian warlords, and they're not Afghan radicals.

They're primarily mothers, fathers, children and grandparents risking everything for a new start in a safe place.

Isn't that why so many of us came here? After all, one in every four Australians was born overseas.

Surely these are the people we want in our country? If I had their life, I would be a boat person too. And if you are being honest, you probably would too.

The only reason we notice them is because they come here on boats.

The fact is most illegal migrants arrive via plane, without fanfare or headlines. And they come regardless of the hard or soft government policies. Images of boat people are leading the nightly news bulletins, but let's get some actual data into this debate.

Globally, there are 11.4 million refugees and 31.7 million internally displaced people and asylum seekers. That's a total of almost 43 million people who could be coming here and only 1767 have so far this year.

That's right, just 1767.

That's 0.0041 per cent of the world's refugees. Hardly a big problem.

In any case, the 1767 are a tiny fraction of the 158,021 people who settled in Australia last year. They make up just over 1 per cent of people who come here.

And let's not forget that on average

90 per cent of them would be legitimate refugees and allowed to stay.

Think about that for a minute. Nine out of every 10 people who come here seeking asylum are allowed to stay here. This means that of the hundreds of people locked away behind razor wire during the Howard years, 90 per cent should not have been incarcerated.

In other words, our Government got it wrong 90 per cent of the time. If 90 per cent of people in a regular Australian jail were innocent, there would be an extraordinary public outcry.

This should be no different.

And don't get me started about them being queue-jumpers. The reason many of these people don't get in line is that in most war-torn countries there aren't queues they can join. Besides, the wait for refugee processing overseas can be up to 10 years.

Forget about giving your kids a better life in Australia - they'll be adults by the time you get here. And so desperate people do desperate things, handing over massive amounts of money to climb onto unseaworthy boats.

The fact that they have paid huge amounts of money for their passage doesn't negate their right to seek asylum. It doesn't mean they have lots of money either - many of those paying to get on boats have saved for years. It's true, they use money to seek advantage. But if you are genuinely opposed to that, you should also be against private health insurance, private schools and nicer neighbourhoods.

Yes, there is a problem with people smugglers, but we should focus on that industry rather than punish those who use their services.

There is not-too-subtle racism in some of this, exposing a nasty, bigoted underside to the Australian psyche.

Our fear is completely unnecessary.

As a country, we are probably the least affected by refugees. We are an island, for goodness sake.

We've got the greatest natural protection from asylum seekers there is - it's called the Australian coastline.

We don't have a boat people problem.

We just seem to have a problem keeping this issue in perspective.

Fuck I hate Malcolm Turnball.

Ah, now I don't know what to think! Good read though.

Misses a key point.

Most of the people that arrive by boat are not internationally recognised citizens, that is part of the problem and why they are being automatically detained. There is no immediate way to determine their actual identity. Ideally of course you would have some sort of embassy application in Indonesia that would be plowed through while they spent their (average of) 5yrs in Indonesia saving up the huge $$ charged to ferry them to Australia (would be much cheaper to fly, but they have no papers to do so).

The other point it misses is that you do have to check who is arriving, even if that is just from a disease spread standpoint (TB is a great example). I am more annoyed with how long the process takes and how expensive it is. I know several people that have applied for citizenship and it is never an easy process nor short. If you want to fix up immigration speed up the process involved (because who honestly has a problem with a PhD student or Govt dept worker becoming a citizen??).