Indonesia and Australia’s Monsoon Season will put Asylum-seekers at risk of drowning

People smugglers in Indonesia are trying to arrange for their boats to leave quickly before the monsoon season begins and makes the boat journey to Australia even more dangerous.

Reports suggest that there are over 500 people waiting in Indonesia to try to get to Australia by boat without visas.  They are trying to use people smugglers who are eager for their boats to leave soon because they have only another two to three weeks before the monsoon starts.

The monsoon season in Indonesia begins in November and moves south to Australia where it usually lasts for 3 months from December to March.  Throughout the monsoon season there is much heavier rain than normal in northern Australia.  These rains and storms make the seas north of Australia very unsafe for the small wooden Indonesian fishing boats.

A minister of the Australian Government said that he was very concerned about asylum seekers dying while trying to get to Australia by boat.  He said: “We do not want to see asylum-seekers lose their lives. We’ve got the monsoon season coming up. We do not want to see boats arriving and people losing their lives like they did just before Christmas last year.”

During last year’s monsoon season in December 2010 a boat carrying Iranian, Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers crashed into rocks off the coast of Christmas Island during a monsoon.  30 people drowned and the bodies of another 18 asylum seekers were never found.

At the beginning of the monsoon season last November 2010, a month before the Christmas Island boat tragedy, another boat carrying asylum-seekers went missing between Indonesia and Australia. Relatives and friends of those asylum-seekers say that they heard their loved ones were getting on a boat but then never heard from them again. According to Australian authorities, boats usually take 2 to 4 days to reach Australian waters from Indonesia. It has almost been a year now since that boat left Indonesia on November 13.

Over the years there have been many cases of boats sinking or going missing on the way to Australia. The bad weather during monsoon season makes the sea journey even more dangerous. While the exact number of asylum-seeker deaths at sea will never be known, those attempting to count the deaths of irregular migrants at sea have estimated that only one in three bodies are ever recovered.

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Australia Debates Migration Law Changes

Last week the Australian parliament opened a debate on the changes to the country’s migration laws. Prime Minister Julia Gillard introduced the changes so that it would be legal to send asylum-seekers to another nation for processing.

The migration issue has dominated Australian politics since the High Court rejected the Government’s policy of sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia for processing. Ms. Gillard hopes that by changing the law her Government can continue with the Malaysia plan and stop the High Court from interfering.

Gillard told 2SM radio “People are sick of watching the politics around all of this, the most humane way to deal with asylum seekers and refugees is to do everything you can to deter people from getting on leaky boats where they can lose their lives.”

Opposition leader Tony Abbott says he will only support the legislation if the government accepts an amendment that would rule out Malaysia because it is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. He says he will only support the changes to the law if the Government sends asylum-seekers to the Pacific Island of Nauru instead.

Nauru was a part of the Pacific Solution, the toughest set of asylum-seeker policies Australia has ever had, and in the 7 years the detention centre was open only 288 asylum-seekers came to Australia by boat.

Ms. Gillard does not want to send asylum-seekers to Nauru because when the detention centre was open there, it was thought to be psychologically damaging for detainees. The party she leads, the Labor Party closed it in 2008 for humanitarian reasons.

Both political parties agree that sending asylum-seekers to other countries for processing will discourage asylum-seekers from paying people smugglers who try to transport them across the ocean to Australia in unsafe boats. Where they disagree is over which country to send the asylum-seekers to.

Australia’s parliament has delayed a vote on changes to the migration law until October 11.

However currently, the recent arrival of two boats to Australia has added fire to the politics of the migration debate. Ms. Gillard blames Mr. Abbott for the arrivals saying that he is weakening the Government in the face of people smugglers.

One of the boats was found north of Christmas Island, initially thought to have 60 people onboard but further investigation revealed a “deck below the main deck” concealing 50 people, 49 asylum seekers and one crew member.

The second boat carrying 66 people sent out a distress signal after passenger concerns about overcrowding and had to be rescued by Indonesian and Australian authorities.

In total 175 asylum seekers will have health and security checks on Christmas Island.