Scott Morrison is honoring the arrangement between the Sri Lankin Government and the Rudd Government.
So what is the problem?
Asylum immigrants - Green Light
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Scott Morrison is honoring the arrangement between the Sri Lankin Government and the Rudd Government.
So what is the problem?
Again you are showing your ignorance. You can't have an agreement with another country that is in violation of your treaty obligations and broader international law. Does the phrase non-refoulment mean anything you to?
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This is pretty trivial stuff for you to get so upset about FC. As stickler for open government you must be happy that The Royal Commission on Union Corruption will throw the spotlight on the secret complicity bwtween Labor parliamentarians and corrupt union officials. Labor is happy to take the union members' money while turning a blind eye to extortsion, thuggery and the stand-over tactics employed by the leaders of AWU and CMFEU and others.
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Have you ever considered being a magician ? Your grasp of misdirection and distraction is masterful.
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Yes, I know it was off topic Rumpy. I just wanted to add a little balance to lefty whinging about Government lack of transparency. After all "people who live in glass houses etc."
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The problem is that the vast majority coming or attempting to come by boat are economic refugees. This was admitted by Labor's Bob Carr himself.
Even David Marr realised it was out of hand under the precious Labor government and acknowledged as much last year on Insiders.
Other western countries will be looking very closely at what this government is doing but the context behind closed doors at least will not be in criticism but in how they can better manage their own border security and that's what worries the UNHCR.
What the UNHCR needs to realise is that a country's immigration program is best managed from within and not from third party people smuggling operations only interested in making a buck, misplaced progressive sympathy or Green ideological dogma against sovereign nationhood.
No nation can solve the worlds problems simply by importing them and hoping for the best which seems to be about where the UNHCR stands. That's just a road ultimately to chaos and one element of that is the drownings at sea that we have already seen. It needs to be much more structured, not lose its way over time and individual nations need to be in control of their own program which is what this government is setting out to achieve.
Julia
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Exactly. Really well expressed. Like most bodies associated with the United Nations, the UNHCR is undoubtedly well meaning, but ineffectual.
This might all be true but it doesn't mean Australia isn't in violation of its treaty obligations. If the Government thinks the UN Refugee Convention is outdated (which they've certainly hinted at) they should have the balls to withdraw from it rather than remain a signatory while violating it. Indonesia isn't a signatory. Perhaps we can join their august company.
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The UNHCR is a waste of space. Out of the current membership the majority would be net exporters of refugees. They can easily outvote Western countries on any issue.
Current Members:
Afghanistan, Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guinea, Holy See, Hungary, India, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Mexico, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania, United States of America, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of), Yemen, Zambia.
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Exactly. No refugees coming here uninvited is a reasonable aspiration, but some people tend to get confused between ends and means. Is potentially making ourselves an international pariah by overbearing military tactics worth the result in the long run ?
And if , as the government says, all is above board in regard to our international obligations, why keep our operations a secret ? Surely announcing the handover of asylum seekers to the country of their origin would be a public relations coup ? Keep the local population satisfied our borders are controlled, discourage others from making the crossing, and show the internationals that we are keeping to our treaty obligations. The fact that our government is telling us nothing invites suspicion of the tactics or results.
Read my bolds....Now who is the ignorant one?????
Tough Australian policy fails to discourage Sri Lankan asylum seekers
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Photo: Contributor/IRIN
"Don't be led by illegal boat operators" warns a government billboard in the country's eastern Batticaloa District
COLOMBO, 29 novembre 2013 (IRIN) - Heightened border surveillance in Sri Lanka, as well as recent agreements between Australia and Sri Lanka to divert and deport would-be asylum seekers, have slashed the number of Sri Lankans reaching Australia’s shores by boat, say Australian authorities. Yet these measures have failed to discourage an increasing number – mostly from the island’s former conflict zones in the north and east – from attempting the dangerous journey.
In 2013 (up to 7 November) close to 2,000 Sri Lankan asylum seekers arrived by sea in Australian territories such as Christmas Island, Ashmore Reef and Cocos (Keeling) Islands, according to Australia’s Customs and Border Protection office. In 2012, three times as many Sri Lankans reached Australia’s shores.
Fighting back
Australia started deporting Sri Lankan would-be immigrants in August 2012 (543 from January to November 2013),diverting others to off-shore processing centres in the neighbouring island countries of Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and putting up cautionary billboards at popular departure points in Sri Lanka’s north and east.
“The programme is working well. The return policy and rapid transfers appear to have an impact on would-be immigrants,” an official with the Australian High Commission in Sri Lanka told IRIN.
Undeterred
Even so, more and more people are trying to leave Sri Lanka, especially in the north, where a 26-year civil war destroyed infrastructure and caused severe suffering. Hostilities ended some four years ago between Sri Lanka’s security forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) rebels, who fought for a separate homeland, but economic recovery has been slow. Jobs are hard to find, making people willing to risk their lives escaping by boat.
Most migrants are unmarried young men with low levels of education, while older men with families and women are less inclined to risk the crossing, according to the Point Pedro Institute of Development, located in the northern district of Jaffna.
Muttukrishna Sarvananthan, an economist and principal researcher at the institute, said livelihoods in the north have improved since 2010, but more investment is needed to speed up recovery.
“Although the unemployment rate had dropped [to 27.4 percent in 2012, from 32.8 percent the year before], it is still more than double the national average in 2012,” he pointed out to IRIN in an email.
Economic migrants?
The unpublished results of a 2012 survey by the institute found that the main factors driving migration - legal and illegal - included poor living conditions (reported by 74 percent of participants) and lack of secure employment opportunities (41 percent), while fear of the military, which has retained a strong presence, had lower importance (18 percent). The institute pointed out the “relatively small” sample size, and need for further research.
Youths in the north reported being more fearful of persecution, and also more willing, to leave the island than those in the east.
Interviews conducted on Australian shores with Sri Lankan asylum seekers in 2012 confirmed that most had left for economic reasons, disqualifying them from protection under international conventions.
Marimuttu Valliamma*, 61, a resident of the northern town of Kilinochchi, whose 24-year-old son returned home in 2012 after an unsuccessful sea crossing to Australia, told IRIN the “madness” of migration had “destroyed” her family.
“He [my son] sold the only land we had to raise the money, and got my only valuables – a gold chain and earrings – also pawned, promising to redeem them when he gets paid the first time. He said there [was] no future in Sri Lanka as there were no jobs.”
She told IRIN her son had been promised a job in Australia, and assumed his passage was legal – a falsehood the Sri Lankan navy exposed when it stopped his boat.
Others deny they left because of poverty. “After 2010 [post-war], we expected normalcy. Instead, youths involved in opposition political activities felt under [so much] pressure that many felt compelled to leave the island,” said Sugunan Vaithilingam*, 28, a supporter of the key Tamil political party, Tamil National Alliance (TNA), who paid the equivalent of nearly US$11,400 to a smuggler in 2011 to get to Australia.
He was also turned back.
Since July 2013, Sri Lankans deemed eligible for refugee status by Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship have been sent for off-shore processing and detention on either Papua New Guinea or Nauru. Amnesty International has described the facility in Nauru as a “toxic mix of uncertainty, unlawful detention and inhumane conditions”
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) also recently condemned the harsh conditions and legal shortcomings in Australia’s off-shore detention centres.
Activists have deemed Australia’s “enhanced screening”, approved in late 2012, as a violation of the country’s obligations under international treaties to assume asylum seekers will not face persecution in their home countries unless proven otherwise before repatriation.
Australian authorities deported Alagan Kumarvel*, 27, in 2012 after holding him in custody on Christmas Island for one month. “If I have to do it again, I would do so. There is nothing for me here [Sri Lanka]. But I have no means of making a second attempt. We were told by the boat operators ‘Australia [is] a humanitarian land’,” he told IRIN in Jaffna District, where he helps run a small fishing boat.
Good blokes
The researcher, Sarvananthan, said why Australia was a country of choice for Sri Lankan migrants had a lot to do with its record of humanitarian assistance. “This… is largely due to the number of Australian volunteers who arrived [in the north] during the ceasefire [2002-2004] between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers, and post-tsunami [in 2004] in the north and the east].”
More recently, Australia invested nearly $187 million in Sri Lanka from 2010 to 2013, which included rebuilding communities affected by conflict. Its programme strategy until 2016 emphasizes a “post-conflict” approach, in which “all aid interventions Australia supports will be conceived, managed and evaluated in a way that is sensitive to the post-conflict environment.
Australia does this because social and economic progress will be undermined if peace is not sustained”.
As the number of youths fleeing the island increases, Canberra has financed local radio broadcasts in the dominant language of the north, Tamil, warning listeners that "Australia has toughened its immigration laws. Illegal entry will not be allowed on Australian soil. Boats will be diverted to Papua New Guinea.”
In November 2013 there were nearly 5,000 Sri Lankans in Australian immigration detention facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
dh/pt/he
Theme (s): Migration, Paix et sécurité, Réfugiés et déplacés,
[Cet article ne reflète pas nécessairement les vues des Nations Unies]
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Poor old Fraser. He still has his knickers in a knot since losing them in a seedy hotel in Memphis. I think he is stark raving mad.:screwy:
IFocus
You are arguing with a Galah
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Just the minor issue of secrecy by the Australian government as it carrys out violations regarding international law outside of territorial waters and returning people to a government carrying out Extra-judicial killings.
No doubt you and others here fully support this beating your chests about stopping the boats and Labor are really bad blah blah...............what is you stand for certainly its not about open democratic government and the conventions of international law.
Again government by lies repeated ad nauseam combined with secrecy is a lethal mix bad things happen.
Now its started where will it stop?
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Blah...Blah...Blah...
The policy is working.
Howard had it right (Pacific solution). Rudd/Gillard stuffed it. Abbott has once again fixed it.
I predict that once the Libs lose (which they will eventually), it will be open boarders once again...
Not that hard to understand. And l'm a simple peron.
They can have whatever MOUs they like Australia still has to act in accordance with its treaty obligations.
http://www.hotheads.com.au/immigrants.htm is a must read for those who are ignorant or naive as what is going on with people smuggling.
Indonesia, being a predominately Islamic country, are well and truly involved in aiding and abetting Muslims to infiltrate the Western World and Australia is well and truly included.
The Islamic movements ambition is to have an Islamic state throughout the world and to have world domination.
http://www.hotheads.com.au/immigrants.htm
NOTE: If you arrived at this page without seeing a menu, please click on this link ... Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, none of which have a policy or track record of persecuting or ... Most of these illegal immigrant people arrive in Australian waters with no ... Anybody who has travelled overseas will attest to this .
Indonesia, being a predominately Islamic country, are well and truly involved in aiding and abetting Muslims to infiltrate the Western World and Australia is well and truly included.
The Islamic movements ambition is to have an Islamic state throughout the world and to have world domination.
http://www.hotheads.com.au/immigrants.htm
NOTE: If you arrived at this page without seeing a menu, please click on this link ... Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, none of which have a policy or track record of persecuting or ... Most of these illegal immigrant people arrive in Australian waters with no ... Anybody who has travelled overseas will attest to this .
Here is an extract from that link portraying how Indonesia is using Australia.
INDONESIA IS NOT AUSTRALIA'S FRIEND
For all the propaganda emanating from some misguided Australian politicians about Indonesia being a friend and ally of Australia, this is a blatant lie. Over the years and decades, Indonesia has proven that it is no friend of Australia, from deliberately murdering Australian journalists in East Timor to facilitating the flood of illegal immigrants to Australia. At least the Abbott Liberal government put a stop to the way Indonesia was screwing Australia with its people smuggling racket..
Australia gives massive foreign aid to Indonesia. But does Indonesia reciprocate by alleviating problems caused by its people to Australia? Not at all. In 2012, Australia gave Indonesia over half a billion dollars to upgrade Islamic schools - in other words, madrassas that teach Indonesian Muslim kids how to be vicious Jihadists. In the meantime, Australian schools were crumbling for lack of funds.
Australia gave Indonesia more than half a billion dollars in foreign aid to upgrade infrastructure and at the same time, Indonesia spent $8 billion to upgrade its military. Australia's military is a joke because of lack of funding, but the idiotic Australian government handed out enormous sums to Indonesia, which allowed Indonesia to boost its military by letting Australia fund the infrastructure that Indonesia should have been funding, instead of spending so much on its military.
Australia gave Indonesia a number of patrol vessels that could be used to intercept and stop the illegal immigrant boatpeople from even leaving Indonesian waters for Australia. What did the Indonesians do? They sent those boats to the north of Indonesia, refusing to deploy them to stop the people smuggling traffic. Australia also gave Indonesia a number of military aircraft. Are they being used to maintain surveillance on illegal boatpeople leaving Indonesia? Not at all.
Australia needs to understand that Indonesia, a Muslim nation, has a vested interest in flooding Australia with Muslim immigrants - it's part of The Hijra, the Muslim Doctrine of Migration. On top of that, Indonesia had been making enormous amounts of money by facilitating the people smuggling racket, so it was a win-win situation for Indonesia. Its politicians made all the right noises to seem as if they were doing something, but they did the opposite, then informed Australia that they would not accept any boatpeople who illegally depart Indonesia, despite their legal obligations to do so. Well bad luck for them, because the Abbott Liberal government pushed them all back to Indonesia anyway.
Australia needs to treat Indonesia as an adversary, not an ally or friend. All foreign aid should be cut off. All donations of hardware such as aircraft or vessels should be stopped permanently. If Indonesia refuses to accept its legal responsibility to repatriate these boatpeople who depart illegally from Indonesia, then Australia needs to drag Indonesia to the International Court of Justice and force Indonesia to do so.
Julia
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IFocus, could you kindly provide a link to the legislation that you are referring to when you say the government is 'violating international law"?
Thanks.
They are arguably violating article 33 of the UN refugee convention (of which Australia is a signatory). As I mentioned before one reason for all the secrecy is the Government probably thinks there's a good chance they would lose if this went to court (the High Court has ruled against the Government on issues related to refugees quite a lot lately).
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Banco it's hard to believe that anyone in his right mind would want to encourage illegal immigrants. Besides being an Abbott hater why is it that you are whining about us not taking orders from the UNHCR kangaroo court which is stacked with mainly undemocratic countries or dictatorships. We can rightly tell them to butt out.
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