Abbot claims we are at war with people smugglers

Late last week, Mr Abbot, on the Ch 10 Wake Up Program, compared stopping the asylum seeker boats to war. He also claimed that releasing information to us; the Australian public would help the people smugglers and put asylum seekers lives at risk. That he would only be satisfying our idle curiosity on the issue.

I have never heard such bullshit rhetoric in all my life from an Australian Prime Minister. Firstly Mr Abbot I don’t just have idle curiosity on this issue, rather a deep concern for the asylum seekers who are desperate people risking their lives and the lives of their loved ones to come to a country that they hope will provide them with the freedom they want.

Secondly we are not at war! We are not at war with another country or with people smugglers and making such a reference takes away from our soldiers, who are placed into actual war zones by our leaders. Places where bombs go off indiscriminately Mr Abbot, where real live bullets are shot at you and every single day you run the risk of being killed.

And here is the irony; it is from these very war zones that many of the asylum seekers come from. The war in Afghanistan was declared post the 9/11 attacks; a war we got involved in and lost 40 Australian lives in. The invasion of Iraq in which we participated in saw 4.7M Iraqi’s displaced.

Thirdly I am not sure how transparency on the number of boats actually arriving would in any way shape or form help the people smugglers.

There was a time when we knew the number boats that were entering our borders, we knew how many lives were lost, we knew the truth behind “children overboard”. Now we have no transparency, just what Mr Abbot and his team decide will satisfy the so called idle curiosity of their constituents.

When are we going to have leadership in this country that tackles this issue, works to find solutions and stop using scaremongering tactics?

Let’s have a look at some facts: (source Amnesty International, Australian Govt)

·         As per the 1958 migration act it is actually not illegal to seek asylum in Australia even if you arriving by boat.  

·         There are 1.1 refugees in Australia for every 1000 people. So guess what they are not taking over the country and our jobs or homes

·         In 2013 15800 asylum seekers arrived in Australia by boat. Every government in power never really makes public annual figures on the actual number of people who arrive and the public assume it must be in the hundreds of thousands.

·         Centre link benefits for a refugee single mother and an Australian single mother is $611. 90. Centre link benefits for an asylum seeker is $0.00

·         The number of refugees who arrive by boat who are terrorists is 0.

·         In 2013 90% of asylum seekers who arrived by boat were deemed to be genuine and those that arrived by air, who are released into the community with no detention, were almost twice as likely to be rejected as refugees.

·         Asylum seekers who arrive by boat make up less then 2% of Australia’s annual immigration

·         At any given time in Australia we have close to 60,000 who have arrived here legally and have overstayed their visas deliberately. Asylum seekers may destroy their passports however will work with our authorities as they wish to legalise their status.

There are so many misconceptions around this issue and perhaps we idle Australians need to take some time to hear stories from people who have risked their lives, given up everything and made the hardest decision ever, to leave their country of birth, spend years making their way to a country that will hopefully give them the freedom every human on this planet is entitled to. For those of you who are interested follow this link to hear some stories.

http://www.rethinkrefugees.com.au/real-stories/najeebas-story/

The issue of asylum seekers who arrive by boat became an election issue last year and by all accounts from the rhetoric we heard I would not blame you for believing that thousands of illegal boat people are swamping our shores and taking our jobs.

Last time I went for a walk on a beach in Australia I certainly wasn’t run over by asylum seekers desperate to get to centrelink and recruitment agencies.

Indonesia is used as a launching point and the local Government has made it very clear that sending boats back to them is not acceptable.

Since 2001 almost 1400 asylum seekers have drowned (that we know about) and if we start sending these leaky boats back more will die. Mr Abbot these deaths do not sit well on my conscience, even though I am not directly responsible for sending them back, they are dying on your watch and we voted you in.

I don’t want to read stories such as the 20 meter fishing boat that sank in June 2012. According to reports they made 16 calls for help over two days, they begged to be rescued but no one went because the boat was deemed to be in Indonesian waters and we handed the responsibility back to them. 102 on that boat died. And over the years asylum seekers continue to drown because neither the Indonesians nor the Australians will take responsibility on who will conduct the rescue operations.

My concern is that if the current government is not open and transparent on this issue how many more people will drown that we will never know about.

I certainly do not claim to have the solution however sending boats back isn’t working; putting people into detention centres for significant period of time isn’t working. Surely we can process people quicker and rather than detention centers that are expensive to maintain and have a number of social and health issues we can look at community integration programs that have been proved to work better?

We have the right to protect our borders but do we protect it at the cost of innocent lives. Remember 90% of asylum seekers were granted visas to stay here in 2013.

The issue of asylum seekers, regardless of how they arrive into this country, will never go away. I want our government to have a humanitarian view of this matter, stop using it as political leverage or scaremongering Australian public, work with public and private sector to develop solutions.

Maybe I am far too much of an optimist however I cannot believe that a country such as ours that has the wealth, the talent, knowledge and leverage cannot find solutions that may not solve the issue completely but will go a long way towards it.

I don’t want the Prime Minister of this country making statements such as was made last week. Instead I want to hear empathy, sadness, anger, determination that this is an issue we can resolve and sending boats back is not the solution.

I know a number of you may not agree with my view point and I accept that. I am a migrant to this country; I came here by choice and actually married to ensure that I maintained my residency status.

However I was born in Fiji, a country that has had political unrest and what if after the first coup  there was persecution that my family and I needed to escape from. What if I too ended up on a leaky boat and begged for the Australian navy to rescue me and my children and no one came. None of you connected to me today, reading this very blog would have known me, I would have simply been a statistic, drowned at sea while trying to enter Australia illegally.

From a pure humanitarian view point, we need to find a way through this issue. We will never stop the boats; that is the sad reality. However we can stop people drowning. Given that 90% of asylum seekers processed in 2013 were granted visas tells me that majority of the people on these boats are genuine.

I believe we can become more focused on solutions  than what we currently are and personally I don’t want to be seen as an intolerant and selfish nation.

We all know that wonderful song by the seekers - We are Australian-  there is a wonderful chorus in this song

There are no words of comfort that can hope to ease the pain
Of losing homes and loved ones the memories will remain
Within the silent tears youll find the strength to carry on
Youre not alone, we are with you. We are Australian!
We are one but we are many and from all the land on earths we come, we share a dream to sing with one voice, I am, you are, we are Australian