By Eileen Gould
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania
CANBERRA, Australia – Australia and Indonesia will discuss Australia’s immigration policy in an effort to slow the number of asylum seekers attempting to enter Australia.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will travel to Indonesia this week, to attend the inauguration of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and also to address the problem through a strategic agreement.
Reports reveal that similar to the “Pacific Solution”, implemented by former Prime Minister John Howard, Rudd’s proposal will increase aid to fund Indonesian detention centers. The aid would also resettle asylum seekers already detained in Indonesia.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Australia is attempting to balance the deterrence of people smuggling while also treating asylum seekers humanely. She notes that close cooperation with Indonesia has enabled the Australian Federal Police to disrupt people smuggling activities by bringing charges against more than forty people.
Some urge the Prime Minister to put pressure on Indonesia to sign the United Nations Convention for Refugees.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young, said, “We need our Government to be working with the Indonesians, with the Malaysian Government, with all of our regional neighbours in partnership, ensuring that whoever, whenever, wherever people reach and approach for asylum that they can have their claims processed fairly and have their rights under international law upheld.”
Those opposing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s administration criticized the use of Indonesia to prevent the influx of asylum seekers into Australia.
Dean of the Melbourne University law school and refugee law expert, James Hathaway, claims that the Prime Minister is using the Indonesians to keep refugees out of Australia rather than using Australia’s own resources to do so.
“Nothing in international law allows Australia or any other state party to imprison refugee claimants – directly or by paying off partner states – for the simple act of seeking asylum.”
Refugee advocates claim that the increase in Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum seekers is a result of “life and death” not “economic” push factors, not the Rudd government’s dismissal of harsher border-protection policies imposed by the former Howard government.
Frederika Steen, a former immigration official and refugee advocate, expressed her disapproval of the hard-line border protection practices of the Howard government, which the Rudd government has dropped.
Opposition attributes the new government’s policy, which abandoned temporary protection visas and ended mandatory detention practices, to the rise in the number of asylum-seeker boats over the last year. The Rudd government must act now, rather than simply letting Indonesia do the “heavy lifting”, says spokeswoman Dr. Sharman Stone.
This year alone, thirty-two boats carrying 1706 asylum seekers and crew members have been intercepted and detained at the Christmas Island detention facility.
Today marks the eighth anniversary of the sinking of Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel (“SIEV”) X, when 353 asylum seekers, of which 146 were children, attempted to make the dangerous journey to Australia via boat. Only forty-four individuals survived.
For more information, please see:
The Australian – Jakarta alliance hit by both sides – 19 October 2009
ABC News – People smuggling on Rudd’s Indonesia agenda – 18 October 2009
Brisbane Times – Border policies ‘ strike right balance’ – 18 October 2009
News.com.au – ‘Rudd should pressure Indonesia on refugees’ – 18 October 2009
New York Times – Australia Seeks Indonesia Asylum – Seekers Deal – Paper 16 October 2009
