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Issue No. 139 | 07 June 2002 |
With Prejudice
Interview: Class Action Safety: A Mother's Tale Unions: The Hottest Seat in Town International: Defensive Enterprise Economics: A Super Deal? History: A Radical Life Media: Cross Purposes Review: When the Force Is Unconscious Poetry: Wouldn't It Be Loverly
Grieving Mum Turns Cole Around Hamberger Grilled Over AWA Scam Government Shrugs Off Death Sentence Charge Action To Pay Foreign Crew Aussie Wages Birds Get More Protection Than Workers Budget Delivers - But Not For DOCS Statewide Ban On Grain Loading Howard Soft On Organised Crime? UN Honours Building Union Drugs Program Award-Winning Poet Wins Right To Write Mahathir Told to Release Labour Activisits Horta Backs Western Sahara Independence
The Soapbox The Locker Room Bosswatch Week in Review
Robbo's Rave Latham Ad Nauseum Our Home Is Girt By Wire Hands Off Hooligans!
Labor Council of NSW |
Letters to the Editor Our Home Is Girt By Wire
As someone who is currently involved in the process of preparing a final year Political Science (at UWA) report on the issue of refugees and how they affect international affairs, I'd like to make a few comments on the current debate that rages both in and around the Labor Party. Firstly, it has to be said that much of the comment surrounding asylum seekers is mischevious and simply untrue. I read Quadrant from time to time, and it was quite startling to see what has been a quality journal in the past allow some substantial fabrications through to the keeper. David Flint's article in the January edition "On the Protection of Our Borders" was a pearler. At one stage in his article he appeared to suggest that we should reject asylum seekers fleeing from the likes of the mafia and the Colombian drug lords. How he can live with this position is beyond me. He then elected to state the usual argument against accepting asylum seekers from Indonesia: they could have claimed asylum there, or in a number of countries before they got there. This claim is problematic. Whilst it is true that Article 31 of the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees states that contracting states cannot impose penalties on asylum seekers who come directly from a territory where their life or freedom is under threat (it is implied many asylum seekers that seek to come to Australia are not coming from such a territory), it must be remembered this: there is not one signatory to the 1951 UN refugee Convention or the 1967 Protocol, between Afghanistan and Australia. The closest signatory to the east of Afghanistan is China. Afghan asylum seekers have no guarentee of security in these transit countries (notwithstanding the shambolic state of the UNHCR's presense in Indonesia: largely due to lack of funding). On balance it is possible (and, I suppose, most Australians support this; but does that justify anything?) that there is a case for not accepting asylum seekers from "transit countries". This can be justified as it would certainly harm the people smugglers, for whom I have little sympathy. But surely, if one was to make that case, it would have to be backed up by the obligation to ensure that the "off-shore" processing system was fair and just and resourced well (as has rarely happened). Whilst I don't always agree with Labor for Refugees, I admire them for generally calling a spade a spade; the "queue" is in bad shape (at times, non-existant) According to a paper circulated by Senator Jim McKiernan, Labor for Refugees in Queensland wants an "end to the processing of asylum seekers off-shore". If this is true, it raises a few issues. Are they suggesting that everyone who seeks asylum off-shore will be transported to Australia whilst processing? Or will it simply be impossible to seek asylum oversees? If the UNHCR was properly resourced, and we substantially increased our annual refugee intake (as even Paddy McGuinness has indicated was feasible) , would the objections to overseas processing persist? I shall request, for the sake of rational debate and clarity, an answer from them in due course. On the whole, however, I believe that Labor for Refugees has mostly played a constructive role in debate on the issue. Certainly, as it is hoped we should adopt some of their recommendations, it will make for two and a half hard years of explaining our policies to the voters: a challenge we ought to take up with gutso. Mandatory Detention is a whole new issue. I find it very difficult to see exactly how anyone who has observed these detention centres first hand could possibly defend the way in which they are run. As many detainees in those centres are fleeing the very menace that we are currently at war with (radical Islamism, for example), why we treat them in a manner that we would treat violent criminals is beyond me. Clearly there must be an alternative. Perhaps the Swedes can drop us a line? I have, however, mistakingly indicated that much of my opposition to the "anti-refugee brigade" is based on the same Leftist sentiment that drives much of the pro-refugee lobby; allow me to dispel any such notions you may have had. A large part of my opposition to the Federal Government's policy on asylum seekers (which is not in the least bit humane), is based on my fundamental belief that the idea of "cultural relativism" is a load of pseudo-intellectual progressivist twaddle. Our universities have been reduced to all new lows by the trendy New Class academics of the humanities and social sciences, who have (the worst examples being in Literature and English) completely debauched the public money they receive in order to indoctrinate students with their rubbish theories. The idea that all cultures are morally equal is one of the most absurd ideas of the academic Leninists, one that must be challenged. Confucious once said that good government was attained when the people were made happy, and those from far off were attracted: clearly the West must be doing something right. I am of the firm belief that the more people we accept fleeing tyrannical regimes, especially those of an Islamist bent, the faster those regimes will implode. We should be doing everything we can to convert more people to our peaceful, democratic way of life, to show people that they need not live in misery or desperation. I believe that instead of being apologists for rapists and murderers in the Third World, as many in the progressivist academia are, we need to assert ourselves and be prepared to accept more people to our cause; how else can we spike the growing boil of extremism? The more we treat people, who merely want to adopt our lifestyle, in a similar manner as those atrocious countries they fled, the more the self-styled intellectuals will be able to peddle their childish theories about the evils of the West and modern life, and the virtues of so-called "traditional societies". It is unfortunate that the Labor Party has fallen somewhat under the influence of the inner-city latte set - perhaps the do-gooders (who are pushing the refugee cause very hard) will, in time, come to terms with the reasons why the refugees want to come here in the first place. Please, for God's sake, let them in!
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