To Stop or Not Stop the Boats - That is Not the Question

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Kevin Rudd has created a storm of indignation with his 'lurch to the right', 'harshest policy ever', 'Tampa moment', a policy designed to do not much more than steal Tony Abbott's line about stopping the boats. Yet amidst the cacophony of critical voices, we seem to have lost perspective - before we decide on who is here legally or illegally, we need to decide who we want to help.

Sydney's unemployed arts students delighted in the opportunity to make posters and scream out 'free the refugees', PNG's residents have uttered a collective 'What, problem belong us??' at the announcement, and Labor's popularity in Western Sydney has most likely soared, where voters are concerned about the imaginary traffic congestion refugees are causing.

Bob Carr spoke of economic refugees as though they are less worthy than 'genuine' refugees, and a lot of people have bought it. We've heard the Government say that boat people displace people sitting in refugee camps in Africa. Yet this misses the point. The point being that Australians concerned about refugees are concerned because they think that by helping refugees, they're helping the world's most vulnerable, those at risk of rape and torture and murder.

In Liberia we met Anne. Liberia's war is over, but the country and its people are scarred. Anne told us that armed men had terrorised and sexually assaulted her and her children, stolen everything including the clothes on her children’s backs and every grain of rice they had saved to eat. In this corrupt, crime-ridden country where women are raped, children are abducted and murdered and thieves roam at night, Anne fears for her life. The only reason we know her story is that she was enterprising enough to take advantage of the well paid expats in Liberia by selling fruit from her street corner stall. Most of Liberia's women don't get to tell their stories to anyone who can help them. There is no UNHCR refugee camp or an Australian embassy in Liberia where she can go and join the 'queue'. When Anne asked how she might move to Australia to escape fear and poverty, we had to tell her she simply didn't have a chance. She's just a vulnerable woman living in an extremely poor country that offers her little physical protection or financial security. She's just an economic migrant, not a 'genuine' refugee.

On the other hand, Julian Assange would be, and actually has been assessed by the Government of Ecuador as, a genuine refugee. If Anne hadn't had her radio stolen and could follow the Assange case, surely she would wonder why he is deemed more worthy of protection than she is.

The United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees only provides protection to a very narrow range of people, and often they're not the poorest people in the world, contrary to what Australians might think. A “refugee” is a person outside of their own country who fears persecution because of their race, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Being raped and abused in your own country? Forget it. Living on nothing but a tiny bowl of rice every day? Your children are stunted and starving? Well, unless you can join a persecuted religion or political party and then pay for a ticket out of the country, sorry, you'll have to live with it.

The Government has been saying that the primary motivation for “stopping the boats” is concern for the welfare of people at sea. But if they really are concerned about things like preventing poor people from dying unnecessarily, there are much better ways to spend money than building houses in PNG for foreigners who aren't welcome, or building expensive compounds on Manus Island that by local standards are like holiday resorts.

Unfortunately this “stop the boats” debate, and the resulting misinformation on both sides of politics, is stopping us from having real discussions about the difficult decisions required to effectively determine who Australia will help, how many, and under what conditions. 80% of asylum seekers, taking into account plane arrivals, are men between 20 and 30.  When we think of the poorest, most vulnerable, this hardly fits the perception.

Important decisions are being hurriedly made in response to a blurry mix of perspectives lurching from the moral and legal obligations to assist innocent desperate people, to the fear of terrorism, and the race for marginal seats. A relatively small number of boat arrivals in Australia has become a huge issue that raises broader fears in the Australian public about national and economic security.

The question is who do Australians want to help? We need to have an informed debate about this before we can make sound policy decisions on asylum seekers. It is much more complex than either “helping everyone” or “stopping the boats”.

Australians are usually pretty generous people. It's only fair to identify honestly where our moral obligations as compassionate humans lie. We should not shy away from realistically addressing fears about the impact that migration many have on our culture and resources. If we are, as we like to think, a compassionate people, then we will continue to want to help, but we need to work out how many people we can afford to help, and who they should be, regardless of what the UN or international law says. We also need to consider how migration for humanitarian purposes fits in to our overall migration program, which includes skilled migration for Australian economic benefit, and Australia’s broader domestic and foreign policy interests.

Once we have decided who to assist, we can then assess whether the laws match up with whatever we decide. This is the kind of re-examination that Australia should be undertaking in relation to its obligations under the Convention, and not the simplistic watering down of protections that is currently being considered to placate a misinformed electorate.

Australia has proven that managed migration can work. Much of its wealth, financial or otherwise, has been built on its immigrants. However the resources we could be using to create better outcomes, both for us and people in need, are currently being wasted with massively expensive offshore processing and detention measures before we’ve even formed a position on who we want to help.

In many other areas of public policy, informed public debate has shaped public opinion, which has been translated into workable policies supported by the Australian public. We can do this with immigration policy. Problem is, reasonable, informed debate doesn't win elections.

Leanne Ho and Carly Learson worked for the United Nations in Liberia. Barnaby Caddy was Country Director for an international NGO.

More on refugees:

Mandaean Refugees Are Stuck Between Iraq and a Hard Place

Does Being Total Assholes To Boat People Actually Work?

Syria's Refugees Are Wedged Between Hells