Why does australia hate asylum seekers
We think we should lend a hand in an international crisis, yet we are also cautious about hosting large numbers of culturally-different foreigners on our shores. The ambivalence that Australians feel about refugees might be influenced by the never ending stream of terrorist attacks around the world. The same debate is also happening in Europe, and after the recent terror attack in Brighton, Victoria, so is Australia. These are all conversations that we need to have - as is the discussion of how to handle failed asylum seekers in an expeditious and humane manner.
But if we step back for a minute and take some heat out of the argument, we find that when considering the refugee issue through the public policy cost-benefit lens, we often miscalculate.
As a society, we seem to be predisposed to think of taking in refugees as a sacrifice. One more demand on our strained national budget. And there is no better time than Refugee Week to examine the considerable gains — both economic and social — that refugees bring to Australia. Compared to other migrants in Australia, it is true that economic outcomes such as earnings and labour force participation rates tend to be worse for refugees. Australia's two leading political parties, the ruling Liberal-National coalition and the Labor opposition, both support tough asylum policies.
They say the journey the asylum seekers make is dangerous and controlled by criminal gangs, and they have a duty to stop it. The coalition government made Australia's asylum policy even tougher when it took power in , introducing Operation Sovereign Borders , which put the military in control of asylum operations. Under this policy military vessels patrol Australian waters and intercept migrant boats, towing them back to Indonesia or sending asylum seekers back in inflatable dinghies or lifeboats.
The government says its policies have restored the integrity of its borders, and helped prevent deaths at sea. However, critics say opposition to asylum is often racially motivated and is damaging Australia's reputation. When asylum seekers reach Australia by boat, they are not held in Australia while their claims are processed. Instead, they are sent to an offshore processing centre.
Even if these asylum seekers are found to be refugees, they are not allowed to be settled in Australia. Rights groups say conditions in the PNG and Nauru camps are totally inadequate, citing poor hygiene, cramped conditions, unrelenting heat and a lack of facilities.
Holding asylum seekers in indefinite detention has caused widespread psychological harm, and exposed them to dangers including physical and sexual assaults, the critics say.
This is far from the fair, efficient and expeditious process that is considered best practice. Yet others are waiting for a decision on that claim. And yet others have been granted a temporary protection visa that has now expired, and they need to re-apply. But unlike the refugees whom Australia has chosen to resettle from overseas, directly from camps or urban settlements, these refugees are denied permanent protection because they arrived by boat.
Many suffer from anxiety , post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological distress, and find it very difficult to adjust, especially without relatives here to support them. Not unlike The Dreamers in the United States, these refugees in Australia have no path to permanency and endure the anxiety of uncertainty.
Even during COVID, the government has staunchly refused to extend them social welfare support — something that could have been done quietly and non-politically. Until now. We can see good examples of this from around the world. In Greece for example, there has been a strong correlation between the recent economic crisis and opposition to immigration.
This has represented a potential failure of others to clearly articulate the real issues going on noting of course that the far left SYRIZA have grown in Greece as well — the failures of neoliberalism and the EU economic policies that have become part of that. If you want to find some of the best evidence for this in Australia, you should go back and look at the poll I quoted at the start of the article.
We know the stories. Asylum seekers are simply economic refugees. It has always played part in the asylum narrative — a narrative that recently expanded out targeting people on visas. The asylum, and immigration narrative in general, has become one about economics. And this is on purpose. It is a concerted campaign. Asylum seekers, and now immigrants in general, have become scapegoats for our economic insecurity.
Shielding ourselves from the economic concerns we face today, we have placed the blame on immigrants — whether it is asylum seekers or those on visas. Whilst the work and campaigns done by advocates should continue — work that taps into our values of compassion and concern for others — a new angle also needs to be taken.
We cannot just think of asylum and immigration politics as just being about race and compassion anymore. It is also about economics. And that means that the left needs to do a better job at attacking our economic realities. We need to target the real causes of the problems we face — the neoliberal economic agenda and the Government policies that have supported that. The right has done an excellent job of targeting asylum seekers using economic means and what we need to do now is turn that around — showing that it is in fact our leaders who are causing these problems, not people arriving here by boat.
Simon Copland is a freelance writer and climate campaigner.