I’m feeling a little conflicted. I firstly want to state that I’m not an expert on the question of refugees, asylum seekers or ‘boat people’. If I get something wrong, please point it out to me.
I hate the fact that people risk their lives to travel in boats that are rarely seaworthy, are overcrowded, with little food or water and a shambles of a crew to come to Australia to apply for asylum or refugee status. More often than not, people die trying to get here.
The thing about our country that is different to so many is that we don’t have any land borders, so people can’t just walk up to the gate and ask to come in to be protected from persecution. A lot of our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region are either not signatories to the appropriate charters or do not treat refugees and asylum seekers very well, so you can understand why they want to come here.
So how do we get to these people before they get on the boats and put themselves at risk (for very good reasons)?
I don’t know. I don’t have answers. It’s just a question that’s rummaging around in my head and I needed to put it out there.
Australia is a large nation and we can very well afford to assist those who need it. As an aside, I have to wonder how it can be considered cost effective to keep people in mandatory detention when they could be released into the community to work and live until their claims are fully assessed once any issues of security are answered.
I do agree with the concept of ‘stopping the boats’ but only in the sense that we should provide another way for these people to have their claims heard. They shouldn’t have to risk their lives to get the chance to be listened to, assessed and then come to Australia as refugees/asylum seekers (or not if assessed otherwise).
I really want the boats to stop. The people on them should have better options made available to them so that they don’t have to take that massive risk of death just to get to safety. If there were better options, I’m sure they would take them.
This is probably an overly simplistic view. I don’t often speak or write about this issue because it is something that I haven’t had a lot of exposure to. I just hate the stories of people drowning to get to safety. It shouldn’t happen. They should have better options. And as a signatory to the charter of human rights and refugees, we should be providing those better options now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.