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More Asylum Seekers Die Trying to Reach Australia
Boats carrying asylum seekers trying to reach Australia continue to sink due to damaged boats and bad weather.
The most recent sinking was off the coast of Malaysia on the 2nd of February. At least eight people were killed. 18 people have been rescued and there may still be more people missing. The boat was carrying asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq. Four Pakistanis and one Afghan man were among the eight killed. It is understood that the asylum seekers had got to Malaysia by land from Thailand. A Malaysian Police spokesperson said none of the men had travel documents.
A 22-year old Afghan man, known only as Sayed was quoted as saying that the 11-metre boat was too small for all the people in the group but that they had been told it was safe. “The journey was initially smooth, but about two hours later, the sea became choppy and I could see water getting into the boat,” he said. “It was at this time that the boatman turned off the engine and everyone panicked. Suddenly, the boat started to sink. We all jumped into the water.”
Around the same time, another group of asylum seekers had to be rescued off the coast of Indonesia. This boat was carrying 54 ethnic Rohingya asylum seekers from Burma. They were believed to be heading to Australia but had to be rescued by fisherman after their boat broke down and was being battered by large waves. One of the fishermen involved in the rescue says the boat was damaged and its engine had broken down.
These recent boat sinkings come just two months after more than 200 asylum seekers drowned off the Indonesian coast. Of the estimated 250 asylum seekers on board that boat only 47 survived.
The Australian Immigration Minister, Mr Chris Bowen said these boat tragedies showed why the Australian Government needed to work with the Malaysian Government to break the business model of people smugglers. He said: “We believe the Malaysian arrangement is the best policy approach, both for Australia and for asylum seekers, providing, as it does, a clear deterrence to people getting on precarious boats and risking their lives.”
In 2011 the Australian Government agreed with Malaysia to send 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australia back to Malaysia. In return, Malaysia would send 4000 asylum seekers who had already been found to be refugees to Australia. The agreement was stopped by the Australian Courts in August.
Speaking at a conference on refugee issues in Melbourne, the Immigration Minister confirmed that the government would keep working to get the people-swap deal with Malaysia implemented. The Minister said the Australian Government was “convinced of its importance and virtue.”
The Malaysian P…
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak, and the Australian Prime Minister met for the first time since the Malaysia Plan was shelved. The Malaysian Leader is in Australia for a meeting of Commonwealth leaders and talked with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard on 27th October.
Ms Gillard and Mr Najib believe that the Malaysia Plan is the best way to stop people smuggling. After their meeting, a spokesperson said that “both prime ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the Malaysia-Australia transfer agreement as an innovative and effective approach to combating people smuggling.”
The two leaders struck the deal in May this year. As part of the plan Australia would send 800 asylum seekers who arrived in Australia by boat to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 processed refugees. But the Australian High Court said that the deal was against the law because the Government does not have the power to decide that asylum seekers can be sent to any country. The Australian Government tried to change the law but failed because they did not have enough support in Parliament.
Despite the High Court ruling, the Australian Government says it remains committed to the Malaysian Plan. The Government says that it believes sending asylum seekers to Malaysia would undermine people smugglers and stop asylum seeker boats sailing for Australia. Many asylum seekers pass through Malaysia when they try to come to Australia.
The Malaysian Prime Minister said he wanted to go ahead with the Plan because he did not want to see more people drowning like those off Christmas Island. In December 2010 30 asylum seekers drowned when their boat crashed off the coast of Christmas Island. 18 more bodies were never found. “At this point, it would be easy to give up, to tell ourselves that we tried but the problem was too big, too politically difficult to deal with, and the people smuggling would go on. The boats would continue to sail. Heartless traffickers would continue to take everything from desperate people – their money, their dignity and, all too often, their lives,” he wrote to an Australia Newspaper.
The Malaysian Leader also said “it is nothing less than a 21st-century trade in human misery and it must not be allowed to continue.” He said he was not prepared to stand by and watch people smuggling continue.
Australia’s Immigration Minister welcomed the comments by the Malaysian Prime Minister but said that because of the High Court ruling and the Opposition’s decision not to support changing the law, the Malaysia Plan could not go ahead at the moment.
The Opposition also wants to process asylum seekers offshore but not in Malaysia. The Opposition wants to tow people-smugglers boats back to Indonesia when possible and send asylum seekers to Nauru. They also want to re-introduce Temporary Protection Visas.
Meanwhile the Australian Navy found and caught another people smuggling boat on the 30th of October. The boat was carrying 57 asylum seekers trying to get to Australia. It is the third boat in one week.
Australia currently has nearly 4,000 asylum seekers from countries such as Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan in detention. This is less that the 6,000 people in detention centres earlier this year.
Australian Politicians Blame Each Other as More Asylum Seekers Arrive
Australia’s major political parties are blaming each other after the arrival of three more boats carrying asylum seekers over the weekend.
The first boat with 15 passengers and one crew member was found near Ashmore Islands off the West Australian coast on Saturday 22nd October. Another boat carrying 79 passengers and two crew was found north of Christmas Island during the night of the 22nd of October. A third boat carrying 44 passengers and three crew was intercepted east of Christmas Island early on Sunday 23rd of October.
All 138 people are being taken to Christmas Island for initial health and identity checks and to determine their reasons for travelling to Australia.
Both sides of Australian politics are accusing each other of helping people smugglers. Neither side will support the other’s proposals for offshore processing of asylum seekers. Both the Government and the Opposition want to see no asylum-seekers arriving to Australia by boat but can’t agree on where to send the asylum-seekers. The Government wants to use Malaysia for offshore processing. The Opposition wants to use Nauru.
The Home Affairs Minister described the Opposition Leader as the “best friend” of people smugglers.
The Opposition Leader accused the Government of providing the people smugglers with their “business model”.
The Home Affairs Minister also said he did not know how many more asylum-seekers could be housed in the Christmas Island detention centre before it was full.
With these recent boat arrivals, there have now been four boats of asylum seekers to arrive since the Australian Government had to put the Malaysia Plan on hold. Australia’s Immigration Department had warned that going back to onshore processing could lead up to 600 asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat every month.
With such intense political fighting over the issue in recent months, and as more boats arrive, Australia’s policies may get even tougher.
When the numbers of people trying to arrive by boat has increased in the past, government policies towards boat arrivals become tougher. In 2001 when numbers increased, the Howard Government began processing asylum-seekers in Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. This policy lasted 7 years and the number of people arriving by boat dropped from 5,516 to 148. In 2007 when the Prime Minister changed from John Howard to Kevin Rudd policies got better towards asylum-seekers and more people came to Australia by boat. In 2010 when numbers got too high again and 6,879 arrived by boat, the government decided to be more tough towards asylum-seekers again. In 2011 to stop the boats the Gillard Government proposed the Malaysia Plan in which 800 asylum seekers arriving by boat would be sent to Malaysia for processing by the UN Refugee Agency.
Less people claiming asylum in Australia
There was an almost 20 per cent drop in the number of people applying for asylum in Australia in the first half of 2011.
The United Nations Refugee Agency reported that just under 5,000 people sought asylum in Australia in the first half of 2011. This was 19 per cent less than a year ago. UNHCR said that this was in ”sharp contrast” to the other Western countries, which had an average 17 per cent increase in the number of people seeking asylum.
The UN Refugee Agency reported that the drop was because less people tried to arrive in Australia by boat. The UNHCR representative in Australia said that “the fall in the overall number of claims in Australia was largely driven by a drop of almost 50 per cent in the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in the first half of this year.”
The Australian Government said the fall in numbers arriving by boat could be due to a number of factors, including their policies in the first half of 2011.
A spokesman for the Immigration Minister said the drop could be the result of “the government’s announcement of the innovative Malaysia arrangement, increased co-operation through the Bali process … as well as the tragic boat crash at Christmas Island in December last year.”
The Opposition said the fall in the number of people arriving by boat had “come off an incredibly high level.”
Meanwhile the first boat has arrived in Australia since the Government’s Malaysian solution was put on hold. There were 51 people on the boat, mostly from Iran and Iraq. The boat was stopped by an Australian Customs boat and was running out of food and supplies.
The asylum seekers are being taken to Christmas Island for processing. The Prime Minister said that the asylum seekers would be held in the Christmas Island detention centre for health and security checks and to confirm their identities.
People trying to reach Australia by boat do not have visas and are considered to be coming to Australia illegally.
In 2011 there were 13,750 places in Australia’s humanitarian entry program. 6,000 places are open for refugees identified by the UN Refugee Agency outside of Australia. 7,750 places are available for people who are the immediate family members of people already in Australia and people who come to Australia and then claim asylum.
A recent survey of Australian people found that most people support the humanitarian program but do not support people trying to reach Australia by boat. Another survey found that most Australians support people arriving by boat being put in detention centres.
Malaysia Plan Still an Option for Australia’s Government
The Australian Government’s plan to send asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat to Malaysia is still up in the air after debate on the law to allow offshore processing was delayed this morning because the Government did not have the votes.
The Government was going to introduce the law for debate today. After it became clear that they would lose the vote, they held an emergency cabinet meeting and delayed the vote for a later date.
The politician with the deciding vote, Mr Crook, said last night that he would not support the changes. He said that the new law could stop asylum seekers trying to get to Australia by boat but he was worried about how the asylum seekers, especially children, would be treated in Malaysia.
Malaysia has not signed the United Nation’s Refugee Convention.
But Mr Crook said that he would support the law changes proposed by the Opposition because these would allow offshore processing in countries which have signed the Refugee Convention – like Nauru.
Nauru has recently signed the Refugee Convention and the Opposition would like asylum seekers arriving by boat to be sent there instead of Malaysia.
The Opposition says that the offshore processing centre in Nauru was successful in protecting Australia’s borders and deterring people smuggling.
The system, often called the Pacific Solution, was implemented by the Opposition between 2001 and 2007. The Leader of the Opposition says that Nauru is a “proven solution for offshore processing”.
Almost all Australian politicians support offshore processing at the moment, suggesting that the Government and the Opposition only need to agree on which country the asylum seekers arriving by boat will be sent.
The Government said this morning that they “remained committed” to the Malaysia swap deal.
Asylum-seeker deals for Malaysia and Papua New Guinea to be decided this week
This week the leaders of Australia and Papua New Guinea will meet to continue their discussions to reopen the Manus Island Detention centre.
In August, Australia made an agreement with PNG to reopen the detention centre on Manus Island for asylum-seekers who try to come to Australia by boat without valid visas. The plan has been delayed after the Australian High Court decision that the Gillard Government’s plan to process asylum-seekers in Malaysia was unlawful. The Government hopes to resume its offshore processing plans after the Australian parliament votes this Thursday on changes to the Migration laws so that asylum-seekers can be sent to Malaysia.
PNG’s representative in Australia said that his government “is ready and willing to cooperate with Australia on any solutions through Manus processing centre”.
Amnesty International and other refugee groups have criticized the plan to send asylum-seekers to Manus Island, saying that sending them to PNG is no different to sending them to Nauru.
Another leading Australian organisation condemned conditions on Manus Island. The Executive Director of the Australian Council for International Development stated that there was “overwhelming evidence” that people detained in Nauru and on Manus Island “suffered mental damage with self harm and suicide attempts a common occurrence, and an absence of trained counsellors and staff being able to cope.” He also said that many of these asylum-seekers were still being treated for trauma and mental health issues following their detention.
An Australian lawyer who worked on Manus Island in 2008 said that conditions in the detention centre on Manus Island had been very hot, humid and cramped. He said that “it would be pretty tough going” for asylum-seekers in the centre.
“During my travels around there I was told that people had tried to commit suicide by throwing themselves on power boxes, trying to electrocute themselves obviously in a state of hysteria or despair I should say. […] So obviously those people had quite enough and weren’t prepared to continue on there. They’re the sort of stories that I heard, again only hearsay from locals who observed these things they say”, he continued.
Meanwhile, the UN agency for refugees told parliament today that sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia is better for them than being detained in Australia. UNHCR Regional Representative Richard Towle has said that the conditions in the agreement between Australia and Malaysia mean that an asylum-seeker would be treated better there than they would in Australian detention. Australia’s policy of mandatory detention does not allow asylum-seekers to work or live in the community, which Malaysia would allow.
UNHCR’s support for the agreement with Malaysia is crucial ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary vote to make the Malaysia deal legal. No Australian Prime Minister has lost a vote on changes to the law in parliament for 80 years.
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.
Australia sticks to Malaysia plan
Prime Minister Ms. Julia Gillard and Immigration Minister Chris Bowen announced that the government would change the migration law after a High Court decision that put in doubt the Malaysian refugee swap deal and other forms of offshore processing.
Ms. Gillard said the amendments would simply restore the understanding of the Migration Act that existed prior to the High Court’s decision. The processing of asylum-seekers in other countries would be allowed and the Government would have the power to decided where they should be sent.
Ms. Gillard says the Government is determined to continue to implement the agreement with Malaysia.
Under the Malaysian deal, Australia would send the next 800 asylum-seekers that arrive by boat to Malaysia in exchange for 4,000 processed and recognized refugees.
The government’s advice remained that the Malaysian agreement would send a strong message to people-smugglers and deter asylum-seekers from making the dangerous sea journey by boat.
“That is why Malaysia, when we announced it, was the best option for smashing the people smugglers’ business model. It remains the best option”, Ms. Gillard says.
The government would also use the changes to send asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea.
The Government insists the new policy will fulfill Australia’s obligations under the United Nations convention.
The proposed changes will be introduced to Australia’s Parliament next week for approval.
Australia is currently detaining all asylum-seekers arriving by boat, including several hundred in a Centre on Christmas Island which has seen riots in recent months.
Changes to Australia’s asylum-seeker policies
There have been many changes in Australia’s policies towards asylum-seekers in the last six weeks. Some of them have been perceived as good for asylum-seekers that want to go there and some have been seen as bad. One thing that has not changed though is Australia’s commitment to break the people-smuggling business and to stop asylum-seekers making the dangerous journey to Australia by boat.
Tomorrow the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard will present a new policy to deal with asylum-seekers. Media reports suggest that the government will now try to change the Migration Act – the law controlling immigration to Australia – so the deal with Malaysia will become legal and Australia will be able to process asylum-seekers off-shore.
On 31 August, the High Court rejected the deal, saying that under existing law, Australia could not transfer asylum-seekers to another country unless that nation was bound by law to protect them. Refugee activists that argued the case for asylum-seekers in court say they are disappointed the government could now change the law.
While the Malaysia solution is likely to be revived, the government also has a few other options to consider. While waiting for the High Court decision, the government signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea to reopen a detention centre on Manus Island to receive newly arriving asylum-seekers for processing. There has also been discussion of making a deal with Nauru to reopen a detention centre there.
If you are being told that now is the time to go to Australia then be careful because things can change quickly again. With all the options I described it could even get worse for asylum-seekers going there.
High Court stops Australia from sending asylum-seekers to Malaysia
The High Court ruling on Wednesday 31 August 2011 prevents the Australian government from transferring 800 asylum-seekers to Malaysia under the swap deal it signed last month.
The plan to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia was a part of Australia’s regional response to stop thousands of boat people who arrive in Australia every year.
The High Court ruled by a majority of six to one that the Immigration Minister could not send asylum-seekers to any country that was not “legally bound by international or domestic law to provide access for asylum-seekers to effective procedures for assessing their need for protection”.
The court said in a statement that Malaysia has not signed the UN Refugee Convention and that there was no guarantee that refugees would be recognized and protected under Malaysia’s domestic law.
The Immigration Minister Chris Bowen called the high court ruling “profoundly disappointing”.Bowen said the government’s plans to send asylum-seekers to Malaysia for processing had acted as a deterrent to those thinking of making the dangerous journey to Australia.
Many have died on that journey, including dozens who drowned last December when their boat smashed on rocks on the island in heavy seas.
Mr. Bowen said: “We’ve had the people smugglers in retreat. Now, today’s decision is a significant blow, but it does not undermine my or the government’s determination to break the people smugglers’ model.”
The case was brought to court on behalf of 16 asylum-seekers who were a part of the first group of asylum-seekers to be sent to Malaysia. The lawyer acting for them, David Manne, said his clients were very relieved.
For now, the 335 asylum-seekers who arrived to Australia since the Malaysian deal was signed will remain in detention on Christmas Island but it is unclear whether they will be processed in Australia or elsewhere.
The Australian government is still considering other countries for its regional approach and it recently signed an agreement with Papua New Guinea to reopen the Manus Island detention facility there.
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