FEATURE: Asylum seeker politics

There are few countries other than Australia where asylum seekers occupy such a central role in politics. The issue's bedevilled Prime Minister Julia Gillard for months, dividing her governing Labor Party and leading to damaging Cabinet leaks.

It was not always that way. John Menadue headed Australia's Immigration Department at a time when the country was absorbing tens of thousands of people fleeing South-East Asia at the end of the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia.

Now he's on the board of the Centre for Policy Development and arguing for an end to Australia's policy of immigration detention.

Mr Menadue spoke to Australia Network's Jim Middleton.

Asia Pacific Focus

Last Updated: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:09:00 +1100

JIM MIDDLETON: Among other things you've called for the establishment of an independent commission to inform public opinion on asylum seekers. How would that help, from your perspective, when Australia's political leadership on both sides of the fence has adopted such hardline positions?

JOHN MENADUE: One of the problems I think with the hardline positions is they're talking to a community which is very badly informed about the facts on asylum seekers.

There's plenty of an opinion around but not a great deal of facts.

And a separate professional independent authority would, we believe, help to inform the community about important facts about refugees - for example, that in the last decade 76 per cent of asylum seekers came by air, not by boat; that Tony Abbott says that we're being invaded by boat people but it's only about 1 per cent of our migration intake.

We take about 8,000 asylum seekers a year, or those that come to Australia. OECD countries, the rich countries, take about 360,000.

So there's information distortion, quite deliberate in some cases. And we believe that a properly informed community is important for improved decisions in this area.

JIM MIDDLETON: Well how is it that a relatively small number of irregular arrivals has come to dominate Australian politics when the country's in much better economic shape than it was in the 1970s and 80s when the community accepted tens of thousands of Vietnamese asylum seekers for example?

JOHN MENADUE: The problem is I think Australia really has an hysteria about boat people.

They come in daily, far more people come over the years, asylum seekers, come by air.

They come in quietly through the airports. They don't cause any trouble or they don't seem to cause any difficulty.

The media shows no interest whatsoever in arrivals by air. But something seems to trigger in the Australian psyche concern about boat people.

And I'm sorry to say that the Government shows a lack of courage in dealing with that issue, explaining to people that these are desperate, vulnerable people who need protection.

JOHN MENADUE: You speak of the Government's cowardice and the Prime Minister's lack of courage.

Julia Gillard's currently facing the worst of both worlds. She can't get offshore procession on her terms, nor satisfactory arrangements for onshore processing.

As a policy maker going back many years what would you suggest is the way through her dilemma?

JOHN MENADUE: Whatever we do at this end is going to be marginal.

The refugees flee countries because of war, violence and persecution. And the waves that come and the numbers that come to Australia is not affected or affected only marginally about what we do this end.

As Euripides said the most destructive thing human beings face is to be forced into exile out of their own country and these people are forced into exile.

We need, as we've said in this paper that we have just released, we need to increase the number that we take from offshore.

We need a special intake from Pakistan where there are many Hazaras presently under persecution from fundamentalists in Pakistan. That would relieve the pressure or provide an alternative to people rather than coming by boat.

We need to adopt in-country programs in both Afghanistan and in Sri Lanka so that we can go into those countries and process people and those needing protection can come to Australia without risking dangerous sea voyages.

JIM MIDDLETON: You mentioned the idea of developing in-country programs in Afghanistan and in Sri Lanka.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen told me some weeks ago that Australia could not afford to be more proactive in such countries.

Given your experiences, a former head of the Immigration Department, do you agree?

JOHN MENADUE: No. I wasn't aware he'd said that and I think he's wrong.

Under the Fraser government, and I was head of the department at that time, we had a special program in two countries in particular at that stage, in Chile and El Salvador, countries under military governments at the time, murderous governments.

And we got permission from those two governments and we went in and we interviewed people facing persecution. And the governments of those countries - the military governments - were in fact glad for those people to go.

And I believe the same sorts of arrangements could be made in respect of Sri Lanka. They would be glad to get rid of Tamils.

I am sure that in Afghanistan the Afghanistan government would be prepared to get rid of some of its minorities that cause them problems and are suffering at the present time.

It is possible to do it. I think maybe we should also think about approaching the Iranian government who are forcing thousands of people out of their country - mainly Christian, secular middle-class people who are being harassed and intimidated and sometimes murdered by the security services in Iran.

JIM MIDDLETON: You've expressed some support for the now defunct Malaysia solution. Why do you think it might actually have diminished the attractiveness of the people smuggler business?

JOHN MENADUE: My experience in working for Malcolm Fraser was that the very successful program that Australia had then - and we took over 140,000 over about 10 years from Indo China. And 1.4 million people fled Indo China after the fall of Saigon.

And the reason why that program was successful was for two things.

The first is the countries of south-east Asia, particularly Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, were prepared to provide temporary settlement, protection for those Indo Chinese which then gave us, the Americans and others, opportunities to process them, interview them. And then they came in an orderly way to Australia.

We will not have a lasting solution to problems in our region of this nature unless we have a cooperative arrangement, perhaps a regional instrument of protection, covering such countries as Australia and Malaysia and Thailand.

Those countries, Malaysia and Thailand for example, have close to eight or 900,000 people.

They are much poorer countries than we are. They are carrying a very heavy burden in protecting asylum seekers and refugees.

They make mistakes, clearly they do. And we make mistakes by locking people up as well.

But we have a very sanctimonious attitude towards countries such as Malaysia. We criticise them. We are quite hypocritical. And I think there is almost an element of superiority in dealing with countries like Malaysia.

So I am generally supportive. I accept now that there will have to be processing only onshore. But in the long term we need a cooperative arrangement with Malaysia and other countries of the region.

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