Nearly 40 years have passed since the first boat carrying refugees arrived off the coast of Australia. Since then, there has been a sense within the government that Australia has been too lenient toward asylum seekers, and various laws that attempt to stem the tide of asylum seekers into Australia have influenced the political landscape. Since the subject of seeking refuge became a top political priority, there have been contrasting viewpoints; two opposed perspectives have come forth with their competing views on how to handle asylum seekers going forward. Since 2008, there has been a good number of asylum arrivals in Australia, which has led to a lot of pressure on two opposing sides of the coalition government, Labor and Coalition governments to adopt measures that encounter the security issues, which come because of an influx of asylum seekers.
In response to this pressure, the government and Labor Party have come up with various measures to reduce unauthorized entries to Australia. Although there is a bipartisan approach to this issue, one being offshore processing of asylum seekers, the difference between the two parties are seen to be minimal, the two opposing sides of the government have one thing in common since 1980’s that all boats that reach the offshores of the countries must be detained at arrival. The government put in place an Expert panel to advice the government on asylum seekers; they acknowledged many complexities in dealing with the issue and noted that there is no simple and straightforward solution to asylum seekers. The panel, for example, argued for not only short-term solutions but also proposed a long-term solution in dealing with the influx. One solution was bringing forward the offshore processing personnel and proposed the government should make many pathways of migration and drafting laws to protect refugees in cooperating regional framework.
However, up to a day, either Coalition or the Labor party has not followed many long-term proposals. The panel though has argued that even if the long-term policies have been put in place, the notion of refugee influx in the county will not go away. The debate will still be part of the national debate. Therefore, the key issues that are discussed here are the difference in policies in Labor and Coalition governments. For example, the Coalition Government had introduced offshore processing to deal with boat arrivals. This policy was adopted by the panel of experts in the year 2013 about offering the alternatives of dealing with asylum seekers (Sanei, 2010).
Policy similarities
Major parties have a common belief that tough measures need to be put in place to reduce the flow of refugees by boats in Australia. One particular item they both agree on is transferring people who reached by boat to the offshore processing facility found abroad. These asylum seekers must also undergo mandatory detaining to contain anti-people smuggling across the border. Both parties also agree that there should be cooperation with bordering countries in the region to stop refugee influx. Even though the government had disbanded the task force, which was to come up with the feasible resolutions, it, however, maintained the offshore processing named the Pacific Solution by the team. The Coalition Government further made the rules tougher in 21013 (Ranald & Pettitt, 2004). Therefore, it would be fair to conclude that both Labor Party and Coalition government support the policies, which are meant to deter the influx of asylum seekers.
Offshore processing
In the year 2002, the Government introduced the of third world country processing of visas through Migration Bill. The exercise accepted Christmas, Cosmos, Ashmore islands from Migration rules for specific purposes of discouraging immigrants from entering Australia by boat. The boats entering Australia were intercepted while still at sea and moved to Indonesia or other third world countries in the Pacific Ocean such as Manus Island or Nauru Island. This solution was adopted by the two parties and was later known as Pacific Settlement. Under this settlement scheme, almost two thousand people were detained in Manus and Nauru Island for ten years. 80% of them were later settled in Australia or other islands (Rice & Day, 2014).
However, the three came a report on Asylum Seekers, which was proposed by the expert panel, and it was again agreed that the offshore processing would be done without giving the advantage to any member of the group. The Asylum seekers would be selected at random and taken to different centers; the general name was a ‘No advantage Principle' widely adopted by Labor government. The rule as explained was ensure that the asylum seekers gained no benefit for circumventing the regular immigration policies. In June year 2013, Kevin Rudd became the Prime Minister and came up with tougher measures, which were welcome by both opposing parties. The new policy outlined as follows. A reward for people smuggling others into Australia was set to a minimum of $300,000. Under this policy, the asylum seekers who are found to be refugees could be settled in offshore processing zones.
In the governments of Gillard and Rudd, there was a focus on the opposition asserting that if the Government were to be elected, it would not accept the act the boats arriving illegally and the people carrying out the smuggling activities with the aim of determining Australia’s program. In the 2013 elections, it was declared by the Coalition government that the processing of offshore would not be taken away from the Abbott Government and start Operation Sovereign Borders to help in coordinating the Coalition's offshore processing as well as measures of prohibiting and discouraging people smuggling activities.
Mandatory immigration detention
This is a policy of Australia whose aim was to detain those people who were not citizens and lacked a valid was introduced by a Keating government also known as Labor in the early 1990s. Since the introduction of this policy, both sides of the politics continued to support it. In the population of the detained people, there were the unauthorized boat arrivals as well those people who had overstayed visas (Lusher & Haslam, 2007). It was such an important decision made by the Howard Government to provide additional and appropriate accommodation with the aim of avoiding overcrowding as well as the deterioration of conditions though it was found to be challenging. This was due to a rise in boat arrivals in the 1990s. This was also the case of the Labor Government due to the same reason of raise in boat arrivals in 2008.
A decision was made by the Coalition and Labor governments to provide additional accommodations and to detain the asylum seekers in remote areas during their terms. This decision or act has been seen to be of great help and use to the public since 2001. The conditions and the duration of this detention had some opposing issues and was seen to be controversial which affected the successive governments negatively. During the Howard Government, the physical and psychological effects of the detained, their centers of detention as well as their duration of detention were greatly criticized.
The government of Gillard developed a ‘no advantage' principle in August 2012 as it was recommended by the Expert Panel on asylum seekers who were more criticized compared to the above decision made by Coalition and Labor governments (Lusher & Haslam, 2007). This principle was much concerned with processing the delays of the asylum seekers. The Panel claimed that even after the irregular immigrants choosing to circumvent regular migration mechanisms, they would not benefit from their choice. The boat arrivals remained detained and gained little or no time advantage compared to other applicants (Hughes & Liebaut, 1998).
The Gillard's government succeeded in introducing a significant number of an asylum seeker on bridging visas in its attempt to increase more pressure in the network of the detention. There was two option for the people left, either to have them remain in immigration detention or transfer them to offshore processing in Nauru or PNG. In case of the decision of transferring them, all the new boats would stay or remain in their detention state (immigration detention) on the Mainland as they make the transfer arrangements. It was suggested some people be held if they have not been released and especially those people whose asylum claims, which had not yet been processed or finalized.
Border protection and anti-people smuggling
The people smuggling activity was seen to be a criminal activity or offense not acceptable to the public by two sides of the politics, which would put the lives of innocent people in danger. These two politics worked at their best and put many efforts to support Indonesia, and other countries put measures of discouraging the occurrence of such unlawful and dangerous activities. Funding decision by the governments of Coalition and Labor to support some programs such as Border protection emphasizing on regional cooperation and anti-smuggling measures aimed at abolishing those unacceptable activities. Most of the measures an example of the tougher policies developed or set aside for those arrested for committing smuggling offenses was criticized by some commentators having it in their minds that their work was just to punish the offenders such as unsuspecting offshore Indonesian anglers operating the boats instead of targeting the people smuggling syndicates. The progress made using a cooperative framework such as Bali process was seen to have produced or come up with the growing focus on ‘regional deterrence' by the UNHCR.
According to Belloc (1967), the UNHCR believes that a problem of a serious undermining the legal, ethical and humanitarian, basis of asylum only if that focus would remain primarily on deterrence. To stop the boat arrival completely, the Coalition advised that all the issues discussed or developed to be addressed and some of the made options be added to support the measures of deterrence made. This claim made by the Coalition did not qualify to be accepted by Labor though it is seen to have some other bi-partisan disagreements.
Temporary not permanent protection
This practice was introduced in October 1999 by the government of Howard who even if arrived unauthorized were found to be refugees. Before this occurred, some distinct groups had been prepared for some short arrangements to protect them from humanitarian crisis issued by Hawke governments (Burnside, 2008). The Government Temporary Protection (TVP), a group of asylum seeking group, which did an excellent job of granting people in the country still with those visas a permanent protection and who at the time was known to be 1000, was abolished by the Rudd Government in its commitment and honoring of the elections in May 2008. The opposition called the Rudd and Gillard governments to reintroduce of TVPs even with the increase in the boat arrivals' number which they rejected (Tazreiter, 2009). TVPs are very important since they reduce the number of unauthorized boat arrivals. It is argued that the more the TPVs are abolished, the more the increase in the number of unauthorized boat arrivals. This showed that the TPVs were necessary for discouraging the rise in a number of the arrivals. Labor opposed this with other commentators arguing that these TPVs could not help in reducing that number of boat arrival, in other words, were ineffective to the decrease in some unauthorized boat arrivals (Turksen, 2010).
Boat turnarounds
This policy of boat turnarounds has been applied or practiced differently by the two major parties centers as the Howard Government practices it. Tony Abbott who was the leader of the Opposition declared that he would direct the Australian navy to do the work of stopping or making the boats to turn back and not to arrive onshore. He said he would do this within the week of taking office. He also said this before coming to power. He said he would pass new arrangements or command the navy to such kind of actions whenever possible or safe to do it. If the arrivals vessels were unlawful or lacked a valid reason as to why they headed there, they would be taken back to the Indonesian waters. This advice was based on the commanders-on-the-spot, Indonesian flagged and others such as Indonesian crude and Indonesian home-ported vessels without reasons (Crock & Dastyari, 2006).
The then Opposition leader, Kevin Rudd introduced that a Labor Government be engaged in this action of turning seaworthy vessels back though this Labor Government did not support those coalition policies of turning the boats back. This was done for the or in the lead up to the 2007 election. Deterrence was only effective on such matters through the detention system. It would also be effective if the navy were prepared to do its part or to take the responsibility of taking action when the vessels are approaching the Australian waters (McMaster, 2002). When the bilateral arrangements were put in place, the Expert Panel on Asylum seekers was seen unnecessary.
Australia’s Humanitarian program
Labor Party presently disagree with the quantity of philanthropist participants which Australia should take even though there has been some contract regarding this problem or concern. In addition to this are quality contracts on family reunion programs (Hughes & Liebaut, 1998). There are about twenty countries worldwide that participate in the UNHCR’s refugee settlement program by allowing the quotas of offshore to be available Australia being one of them. There was an increase of the quota of entrants by the previous, but before it happened, there was hovering of the annual planning levels of Australia's Humanitarian Program between 12000 to 13750 places in 1996 (Spijkerboer, 2015) where both the offshore and onshore visa grants were included.
When making a speech at the institute of public affairs, Tony Abbot gave praise to the support for the growing concern of the humanitarian approach to the asylum seekers. The local groups could be persuaded to help the asylum seekers settle locally. The opposition leader also encouraged the government to increase the intake of refugees from 15000, which was the initial figure in 2012. He urged them to grow the humanitarian flow by 10,000 annually, which will not affect the economy of Australia significantly. It was announced by the opposition leader that the asylum seekers number should be increased from the current 1370 and should be increased to 23,000 by the year 2017 (Healey, 2003).
Countries involved in existing rules that upheld a worthy equilibrium between the spotted needs to Australian national Borders. As the unauthorized immigrant's arrival increase, many states are forced to create some favorable and realistic measures to control this activity. Both governments of Coalition and Labor have been challenged to maintain or create measures of ensuring there is protection by a significant increase in the number of Asylum seekers who have been arriving by boat without any authority since 2008. This also pressured that government to adopt the measures developed to decrease the occurrence of such activities like people smuggling.
Conclusion
Australian government and opposition have increasingly supported the increasing deterrence in the attempt at trying to slow down the flow of asylum seekers to the Australia. There are few policy differences, but in the majority of the issues, they agree. One of the points noted is that asylum seekers need protection. In addition, they agree on whether they should be turned back or intercepted in international waters. Another area of contention is whether the Australian annual intake of asylum seekers are too high (“A last resort”, 2009).
References
Belloc, H. (1967). On. Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press.
Burnside, J. (2008). Watching brief. Melbourne: Scribe.
Crock, M. and Dastyari, A. (2006). Future seekers II. Annandale, N.S.W.: Federation Press.
Healey, J. (2003). Racism in Australia. Rozelle, N.S.W.: Spinney Press.
Hughes, J. and Liebaut, F. (1998). Detention of asylum seekers in Europe: analysis and perspectives. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
Lusher, D. and Haslam, N. (2007). Yearning to breathe free. Leichhardt, N.S.W.: Federation Press.
McMaster, D. (2002). Asylum seekers. Carlton South, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
Missbach, A. (2015). Troubled transit. [Place of publication not identified]: [Publisher not identified].
Ranald, P. and Pettitt, A. (2004). Protecting human rights in Australia. Sydney: Public Interest Advocacy Centre.
Rice, S. and Day, A. (2014). Social work in the shadow of the law. Sidney: The Federation Press.
Sanei, F. (2010). "We are a buried generation". New York, NY: Human Rights Watch.
Spijkerboer, T. (2015). Fleeing homophobia. London: Routledge.
Tazreiter, C. (2009). Asylum Seekers and the State: The Politics of Protection in a Security-Conscious World.
Turksen, U. (2010). Protection seekers, states and the new security agenda. İzmir: Altın Nokta.
A last resort (2004). Sydney: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.
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