Bill Shorten to pledge to adopt boat turnback policy (Australian left accept border protection)

Herald Sun (Melbourne) ^ | 23rd July 2015 | Ellen Whinnett

[naturalman1975]

LABOR will go to the next election promising to turn back asylum-seeker boats in a dramatic policy switch which will test Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s leadership.

The Herald Sun can reveal Mr Shorten and Immigration spokesman Richard Marles will endorse a new policy which will see Labor go to the election vowing to turn back asylum seeker boats intercepted on the way to Australia.

The decision will set up a massive brawl with the party’s Left, which opposes turnbacks, and could be undermined almost immediately by a vote at the party’s national conference on Saturday.

Writing for the Herald Sun, Mr Marles made it clear Labor had abandoned the failed policies of the Gillard and Rudd years which saw 50,000 asylum seekers arrive in Australia by boat, and another 1200 die at sea.

“Despite best intentions, a terrible loss of life took place on Labor’s watch," he writes.

“We did not get it right then but we are very clear now about making sure we don’t repeat those mistakes.

“Offshore processing and regional resettlement together with the Coalition’s policy of turn backs is what actually stopped the boats," he writes.

“I believe, provided it can be done safely, a future Labor Government must have the option to undertake turn backs."

Labor’s decision to match the Coalition policy of turnbacks is an acknowledgment of the success of the hardline Operation Sovereign Borders, which was implemented by the Abbott Government after it was elected in 2013, and which stopped the flow of boats almost entirely.

[naturalman1975]

For clarity - Australia currently has a conservative coalition government (in Australia, the Coalition is a more or less permanent alliance between the two largest conservative parties, the city based Liberal Party, and the rural National Party - they match policies so closely they probably would have merged (and indeed have in a couple of states) except that the Nationals are worried that without their separate voice, rural issues would be given less priority than urban ones. It's not a temporary coalition like, for example, that which was recently in place in the UK just because of electoral mathematics - it's operated here for most of the period since 1923 (it has occasionally been suspended, especially at a state level but it's the norm).

On the other side of politics, we have the current opposition - the Labor Party. There's a host of minor parties (some more minor than others) but realistically any Australian government will either be Coalition or Labor.

This reversal of policy by Labor is quite stunning. It involves them accepting that the policies they had in place from 2007 to 2013 when they were in government lead to the deaths of over 1200 people (Labor admits to 1200 - it may have been much higher) after years of denial. It involves the success of a coalition policy they have been bitterly opposing and fighting. It is also going to send a large part of the Australian left into a frenzy as the party they support adopts a policy they've been hysterically describing as evil, fascist - they're not going to know what to do.

Outside of politics, it's really quite simple. Australia has a massive coastline, and lies just to the southeast of Asia. As a modern, industrialised western democracy, a lot of people would like to live here. Australia has long been willing to take a reasonable number of genuine refugees who are genuinely fleeing despotic governments, but they have to come here on our terms after we've checked their claims, and we've decided that they are not likely to be a threat to us. They can't be allowed to simply turn up here on our coast by boat - especially as nearly all those boats are coming from Indonesia, which while it certainly isn't as nice a place to live as Australia, is nonetheless a safe place for refugees to wait for resettlement. We decide who comes here.

But besides that, there is also a genuine moral concern for the safety of these people. Travelling here by boat requires crossing at least hundreds of miles of open ocean. It's dangerous, especially when its often done in vessels that really are not designed for such journeys. People die on this journey - boats sink, and sometimes the people smugglers these people pay - who are, after all, criminals out for money - aren't all that concerned about actually making sure everybody who gets on their boat is still on it when it gets to Australian waters. Australia will always respond to the best of our ability to a call for distress from a boat at sea. But even with the best will in the world, we cannot rescue everybody in a sea area covering thousands of square miles. The only way to keep these people safe is to stop them getting on the boats in the first place - and that's why the government adopted the policy of turning back the boats and putting people in offshore detention for processing. It's quite simple - we send the message that if you try to come here by boat, it won't work. You will not make Australia home. We will send you back to Indonesia if it is safe to do so, or if we have to rescue you, we well, but you will go into a camp on Nauru or in Papua New Guinea or somewhere else for processing to see if you are a genuine refugee. You may as well stay in Indonesia and get processed there. That's your best chance to be allowed in. Once this message was made clear, a lot fewer people risk the sea voyage.

[Cowboy Bob]

I wish America would follow suit with a policy like that.

[Gay State Conservative]

IIRC Australia pays one or more countries to take in people who've requested asylum in Australia.Sounds good to me.Australia doesn't have to take in uneducated people totally unfamiliar with Western ways,the country receiving these refugees get the much needed cash and the refugees no longer have anything to fear (assuming their fears were legitimate to begin with).

I wonder how much it would cost to convince some country to take in the 30 million Spanish speakers who are in the US illegally.

[Boogieman]

Nice. Now they can start campaigning for the “sharks with friggin’ laser beams” border security policy.

[naturalman1975]

I wish America would follow suit with a policy like that.

To be fair, it is a lot easier for Australia to police borders made up of wide ocean than a long, thin, land border. What is practical in our situation isn't necessarily as practical in others.

[factoryrat]

What’s with all of the arabic in that flyer?

On a different note, if I, as an english speaking American, with skills useful to you and your fellow Australians, washes up on shore for some odd reason (wink-wink), can I claim refugee status?

Can I perhaps claim status as being a refugee from Obamistan, or maybe texamexiforniastan?

I promise I won’t take up much room, and I already live in the high desert, so the outback would be just like home.

[naturalman1975]

IIRC Australia pays one or more countries to take in people who've requested asylum in Australia.

That is the general idea with those who arrive here illegally (ie, by boat) and who are processed in the off-shore camps. If they do prove to be a genuine refugee who cannot be safely returned to where they came from, Australia will help them get to a place of safety. It just won't be Australia. And that can mean paying other countries to take them.

People who follow the rules and go through processing overseas may well be resettled in Australia. Like most wealthy nations, we do take in some refugees - but it's on our terms and they have to follow the rules.

[naturalman1975]

What’s with all of the arabic in that flyer?

Australia distributes these flyers around the world in all of the countries that tend to produce 'asylum seekers' (whether they are genuine refugees or not). So they are localised for local languages. That particular one was the best example I could find online to share, and happens to be one that is distributed in Pakistan, so it has the common languages of Pakistan repeating the same information as is in English at the top.

On a different note, if I, as an english speaking American, with skills useful to you and your fellow Australians, washes up on shore for some odd reason (wink-wink), can I claim refugee status?

Quite seriously, no. If somebody tries to come here illegally, they will not be allowed to stay. Even if they have useful skills.

We do have programs that allow skilled migration by those who have skills we want, but those people have to follow the right processes.

Australia is a nation of immigrants - tens of thousands of people immigrate to Australia each year and if they follow our rules, they are welcome. But they have to follow our rules.

And that is what this is about. The distinction between legal immigration and illegal.

It's not easy to immigrate to Australia - just as it isn't easy to immigrate to the US. We don't just let anybody in. We let those in with the skills we want and need, and we do consider how well they will integrate (Americans would generally be assumed to integrate quite easily because of a similar culture and language). We also do accept some genuine refugees - but they have to have followed the rules concerning seeking asylum in those cases.

[FreedomPoster]

Thanks for the Aussie politics primer. I’ll have to verify my new neighbor’s leanings. I’m pretty sure he’d be a Coalition guy.

[montag813]

To be fair, it is a lot easier for Australia to police borders made up of wide ocean than a long, thin, land border. What is practical in our situation isn't necessarily as practical in others.

Israel does it easily, now that they put up an impenetrable fence. If we spent the same per mile that they did, it would cost less than $7 billion to build. And Federal law requires it: The Secure Fence Act (2006)

[factoryrat]

I understand and respect your immigration rules (just a little tongue in cheek humor). I wouldn't actually pursue that route (unless the US went to hell in a handbasket tomorrow, and flight was preferable to a horrible death).

What I found interesting is that your country has to distribute those flyers as far away as Pakistan!

All in all, interesting to say the least.

[naturalman1975]

I know it was tongue in cheek humour, but I thought it was important to be clear that this really does apply to everyone. A lot of the left here try to claim this is about racism - it isn’t. If it was racism, it wouldn’t apply to Americans, or to the British, or to Europeans - it gets applied to everyone. If you come here illegally, you will not be allowed to stay.

The fact that people from certain countries and cultures are more likely than others to try and do this, doesn’t make our laws culturally or racially or in any other way discriminatory. It reflects which countries currently have the most serious problems.