Rudd Government to people smugglers: "Australia is open for business once again"

From TheRealists:

Immigration minister takes ‘modern risk management approach’ to Australia’s security

July 30th, 2008

Mandatory detention of asylum seekers, introduced in 1992 and according to former Labor leader Mark Latham one of the “proud achievements of the Keating administration”, has been watered down by the Rudd Government.

Headlines across the world are announcing to would-be asylum seekers that Australia is open for business.

Asylum seekers for the first time in 16 years can now come to Australia, face some routine checks and then be released into the wider community. It’s what our new immigration minister, Senator Chris Evans, likes to call a “modern risk-based approach to detention”.

The immigration minister says that the Howard government policies brought great shame on Australia. He points to the United Nations Human Rights Committee making adverse findings against Australia in immigration detention cases. But being a minister isn’t about avoiding shame. It isn’t about pandering to corrupt organisations such at the UN.

I’m reminded of a BBC reporter who was sent undercover into Pakistan to obtain fake Afghanistan passport in order to pose as an Afghani refugee in the UK. The counterfeiter assured the reporter that all he had to do was show up in the UK with that passport to be allowed asylum; and access to welfare payments. He said that the only countries in the world where they wouldn’t believe he was an Afghani were Afghanistan itself; and Australia. That’s just one example of corruption of the asylum system, and a reason why Australians can feel proud of their tough asylum policies.

The deterrent effect of mandatory detention and a tough immigration stance can also be seen in the figures showing a dramatic reduction of people coming to Australia by boat since the Tampa incident in 2001 made headline news around the world. The success of these policies has been so great that few boats have made the journey to Australian shores since 2001.

The minister would also be advised to speak to some Europeans on the matter of asylum seekers. In Europe hundreds of thousands of people claim asylum each year. A new phrase ‘asylum shopping’ has been coined for asylum seekers who travel from country to country attempting to get the best asylum deal. Now the asylum seekers have a new shop to try.

The Europeans, without the tough policies that Australia has, are powerless to contain the flow of people. Why would Australia want to go down this path?

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the new policy is that under the new system the department will have to justify why a person should be detained. That is, asylum seekers will be given automatic rights to live in the Australian community, with the onus on a government official justifying why the asylum seeker does not have that right. Shouldn’t this be the other way around?

This is a bad signal to be sending out to the rest of the world. The rights of the illegal immigrant will be placed ahead of the right that ordinary Australians have to feel protected in their own country. This is a bad signal to be sending out to the rest of the world, let alone legislating for the Australian people. It is exacerbated by the government saying it will only detaining people “as a last resort”.

The minister for immigration recently said that “The debate about temporary migration, quite frankly, is over”, even as more Australians wake up to the problems of sustained mass immigration. Having reduced our immigration standards the same minister now wants to weaken our asylum policy by introducing a risk-based approach to detention.

In a time when Europe and the Unites States are grappling with ways to contain illegal immigration, now is not the time for the minister to be watering down our immigration and asylum systems and steering Australia closer to their failed policies.

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