Dear Mr Shorten,
Mr Turnbull’s “American
solution” for Manus and Nauru risks re-starting the boats
just as much as bringing the detainees to Australia would have
done. There is no prospect of any other “third-country”
solution—if there were, the government would not be sending
detainees to the US.
But not all the detainees, not
even all who have been recognised as refugees, will go to
America, http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/us-considers-taking-australian-refugees/news-story/115fb031c864ca200e533748249810f4. The government intends to
prioritise women and children and family groups. This will leave
single men (formerly detained on Manus Island) as long-term
indefinite detainees on Nauru.
The ALP should urge that
detainees recognised as refugees, or not yet processed, who are
not accepted for re-settlement in the United States should all
be re-settled in Australia.
That would not give any more
encouragement to boat arrivals than the American solution
already gives.
John
Kilcullen
See:
Refugees.html
-----------
Email 15 December
2016:
Dear Mr Shorten,
Labor should
propose that all detainees on Nauru and Manus Island not accepted
for resettlement in America should be brought to Australia.
From
recent news reports (e.g. http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/11/12/us-considering-deal-to-resettle-detainees-from-nauru-manus-isla/)
it appears that the Government intends to resettle women, children
and family groups in the US, leaving single men indefinitely on
Nauru. The effect on these men of such unfair treatment is
likely to be very serious.
The Government
should communicate in the very near future with each and every one
of the asylum-seekers sent to Manus Island and Nauru and promise
them that they will all leave those places by a stated date in
the near future, to go either to the United States (if the
Trump administration agrees) or to Australia. Those who still need
to be detained for some good reason (e.g. that they are not
genuine refugees) should be detained in Australia.
The “drownings”
argument, i.e. the claim that if these people are ever allowed to
come to Australia the boats will re-start and people will drown,
applies with at least equal force to re-settlement in the US. To
stop the boats the government has thrown out a “ring of steel”: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-14/dozen-naval,-abf-ships-sent-off-to-block-people-smugglers/8023636 While this
ring of steel is in place, the Government can bring the remaining
detainees to Australia without any more encouragement to boat
journeys than the US resettlement plan already gives.
While in this
country we go into aestivation, in the US big things are
happening, including a decision on the resettlement of detainees.
Now is the time for outspoken intervention.
Yours faithfully,
John
Kilcullen
-------------
Email June 2017
Dear Mr Shorten,
At the coming ACT Labor Conference (29 July) the following motions are on the agenda:
* We call on the Australian
Government to bring all detainees and former detainees now in PNG
or Nauru to Australia as soon as possible. We call on the national
leader to pledge that Labor will bring them all here within the
first three months of taking office.
* We regard the Turnbull-Trump
American resettlement deal as at best a partial solution to the
offshore detention problem, since it may take a long time to
implement and may not provide resettlement for all former Manus
and Nauru detainees. We call on the national leader to promise
that while US “extreme vetting” is in process, all the detainees
will be in Australia, that those recognised as refugees but not
accepted by the US or other countries will be settled here, and
that those who are to be deported to their country of origin will
be deported from here, after reconsideration of their refugee
applications.
In a Morgan Poll on
17-19 Feb. this year the sample was asked: “Do you think
asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Nauru should be brought here
to Australia or not?”
http://www.roymorgan.com/findings/7159-asylum-seekers-nauru-manus-island-february-a2017-201702222052
Sixty-eight percent
of Labor voters answered Yes. Thus your present position is
out-of-step with the views of two thirds of Labor voters.
The electoral cost of this is Nil, because after all these people
still identify as Labor voters; the treatment of the detainees is
not a high-enough-priority issue to outweigh all their reasons for
preferring Labor to the Coalition.
But by the same
token the electoral cost of switching the policy would also be
approximately Nil. A Labor voter would not switch to the Coalition
unless keeping asylum-seekers out is so important to them than it
outweighs all their reasons for preferring Labor. Anyone so
strongly of that view will already be voting One Nation or LNP.
And if a switch in policy sent some Labor voters to the LNP, it
would also bring some LNP voters to Labor: 23% of LNP voters want
the detainees brought to Australia, according to the Morgan poll.
Though the
electoral costs either way are not high, your present position
does carry heavy longer-term political costs. The fact
that Labor Parliamentarians are so much out of step with the views
of Labor party members and Labor voters on a humanitarian issue of
major importance makes Labor’s claim to stand for humane values
(fairness, equality, human rights, compassion, generosity, etc.)
sound hypocritical. The result of the Labor-LNP “unity ticket” on
Manus-Nauru will be widespread contempt for politicians,
disillusionment with politics, further hollowing-out of political
parties, and loss of faith in democracy. Both of the major
political parties refuse in this area to implement values many
ethically concerned Australians support, and a vote for a minor
party can have no effect.
... If preventing
the Manus and Nauru detainees from settling in Australia or NZ or
any other attractive first-world country were the only way of
preventing drownings, the Turnbull-Trump agreement would have led
to another surge of boats. America is the first-world country par
excellence, a very attractive destination. Whatever is preventing
any surge resulting from the American arrangement (that may
include turn-backs we don’t hear about, or disruptive AFP
operations, or Indonesian government action—whatever it is) would
likewise prevent a surge if the detainees were all brought here.
...
Best wishes,
John Kilcullen
The Morgan poll
results are similar to results of other public opinion samplings
at the time of the last federal election:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-09/election-2016-vote-compass-asylum-seekers-immmigration/7493064
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