Did Asylum Seekers Prevent Us From Finding MH370?

Image by Ben Thomson

Asylum seekers—first they bothered you by causing traffic in Sydney, now they’re dashing your dreams of finding missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. Australia’s ability to detect whether the missing Boeing 777, which was lost off the coast of Western Australia, was hindered by the country’s most powerful radar focusing in the wrong direction. Instead of looking west the $1.8 billion Over the Horizon radar system was looking north to, you guessed it, search for asylum seeker boats. Therefore you can now blame those pesky asylum seekers for getting in the way of narrative closure. So settle in for your weekly instalment of uncomfortable national politics otherwise known as The Hate Boat.

– Everybody loves it when a government keeps their election promises right? Well in that case Australia can rejoice and thank the Abbott government for sticking to their three word slogans and turning back the boats. More details about the long mysterious process has been revealed with Iranian asylum seeker Arash Sedigh detailing his account and releasing mobile phone footage of the journey. Mr Sedigh and a boatload of asylum seekers were heading for Christmas Island when they were intercepted and forced on to one of the government’s orange boats before being towed back to Indonesian waters. Mr Sedigh raised concerns about the orange boat’s safety for ocean travel and the response from Australain officals will really make you swell with national pride, "They told me, 'That's not our problem, that's yours. If you die in the Indonesian water, [it] makes Indonesian government in trouble and responsible. That's not our problem'." After two failed attempts at entering Australia Mr Sedigh says he’s given up hope and won’t try again. Making the government’s deterrent policy a success—but at what loss?

– Both the previous and current Australian governments have some new bedtime reading, with a new book released that won’t bring on the sweetest of dreams. 26-year-old Sydney man Mark Isaacs has just released The Undesirables, detailing his time working inside a Nauru detention centre for the Salvation Army. Isaacs was hired by the Salvo’s to provide support in Nauru after the centre was reopened by the Gillard government in 2012, he was 24 at the time with no experience and got the job after a single phone call. The embarrassment for the government kicks off from the front page, with the title being a term Isaacs overheard a government staffer use to describe an asylum seeker. Isaacs’ description of the centre’s inner workings highlight the mental effect of detention “criminals were given a sentence to serve: these men were not even given that,'' Isaacs writes. ''They feared they would die in Nauru, that they would be forgotten, that they would become non-people.''

– Department of Immigration officers were left asking “What civil war?” when they found out they probably shouldn’t return Syrian asylum seekers back to their home country. Two Syrian nationals detained in Manus Island considered returning to the war torn country after spending time in detention. Leaked case manager notes of one of the men document the consideration, with one comment “that he would rather die a martyr in Syria than die a slow death here [Manus] feeling as he does now”. Making it look like the Australian government are eager to get asylum seekers out of detention, just not in the direction you’d think. The department began facilitating their return to Syria but in the end neither asylum seeker took up the offer. With Syria entering its third year of war, Syrian asylum seekers would be a shoe in for refugee status under the 1951 UN refugee convention but knowing Australia’s lukewarm affection for the convention that doesn’t mean much. I’m no expert, but when someone would rather live in war torn Syria than an immigration detention centre, maybe that’s a red flag moment.

Follow Mitch on Twitter: @MitchMaxxParker