Politicking wins, vulnerable people lose out
Dec 4, 2024
Isn’t it better to hold on to integrity, uplift the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and risk losing an election, rather than win an election through the brutal treatment of society’s most vulnerable people?
Guillotining such significant Migration legislation on the last day of the sitting Parliamentary year displays an unhealthy decision-making culture at the highest level of our prized democratic society. It’s now up to the Court once again to maintain a semblance of Australia’s Human Rights obligations. Dedicated lawyers will be pressured to focus in order to right this injustice for the sake of ensuring that human rights are accessible for all people living in this great country.
Since the late 1990s I have closely supported people seeking Australia’s protection who arrived by plane and who the decision-making system failed. Fortunately most of them succeeded in gaining Ministerial intervention and are now very productive Australians. I have kept contact with these families over the years and have a clear understanding as to how the system could be improved to enrich the broader Australian community rather than weaken community cohesion. In Acts of Cruelty (Palaver 2022) I have illustrated how the Migration system can be seriously flawed and discriminatory. I am horrified to think that the Labor government who promised to be more compassionate even considered such discriminatory Bills.
Deporting people to unspecified third countries is surely a contemporary, institutional form of people trafficking – moving people against their will to an unknown country where the receiving country will be economically rewarded. Furthermore such intentions make a mockery of the toothless Parliamentary Human Rights Committee when it comes to Australia’s Human Rights responsibilities and non-refoulment obligations towards people seeking Australia’s protection.
Australians of all cultural backgrounds make serious mistakes from time to time. They are rightfully punished, released back into the community to get on with their lives. It is discriminatory when this is not the case for people with permanent visas with a different cultural background that now allows a Minister to overturn protection findings especially when other members of the family are citizens. It is more important to assist people who have fled violence to feel safe and secure than to make them even more frightened and unsettled through threats to overturn their precious protection visas.
Putting people at risk of deportation at any time undermines community cohesion. Instead of getting on with their lives, people this Migration Act targets live continuously under the shadow of deportation, despite the taxes they pay and the work they contribute to Australian society.
One person I know who runs a prosperous business has lived like this since 2008 – 16 years having to report to the department every three months! Human beings need a sense of security and it is up to our Australian parliament to endeavour to provide this to these very vulnerable people who have asked for protection, rather than impose punishments when things are not working well.
Thousands of people remain on temporary visas without a sense of security and without entering the criminal system. Parliamentarians could focus their minds on making the lives of this unfortunate cohort more secure rather than the relatively few who have committed a crime and done the time. Keeping things in perspective might provoke parliamentarians to act more justly and to consider safe pathways for those also on bridging visas including those transferred from Nauru and Papua New Guinea.
The imposition of ankle bracelets is reminiscent of the humiliating and degrading Aboriginal Dog Tags. When is Parliament going to leave historical cruelty behind and invest in positive measures to enhance this multicultural society? Mandatory trauma counselling and participation in community support programs would be more helpful than the dehumanising ankle bracelet. In my experience, most people seeking Australia’s protection do not have close kinship ties, family mentors and support people they can trust and turn to in Australia, when they are confronted with difficulties in this foreign culture. People who have gained Australia’s protection can be frightened, vulnerable individuals for quite some time before they are confident that they can feel permanently safe. I have supported several traumatised mothers when giving birth and been at the side of suicidal fathers drowning in despair.
Furthermore, Australians expect parliamentarians to respect the High Court decisions just as we are expected to do so. Any decision to reinstate ankle bracelets and curfews is an attempt to disrespect the Court rendering the independent body powerless. In a democratic society the parliament cannot usurp the power of the courts and it is up to the courts to ensure that this does not occur.
Breaching peoples’ privacy is extremely dangerous to those affected. Over the years I have known people whose relatives or enemies from their home countries have threatened them here in Australia. Information spreads very quickly and the consequences can/have been traumatic.
One only has to watch Question time in parliament to observe just how these elected leaders are dependent upon their mobile phones. For these same people to legislate that people incarcerated in isolated detention camps can no longer access their lifeline to humanity through forcefully blocking access to parents, wives and children, friends and lawyers crosses a dark red line.
The Australian government has become afraid of a bit of kindness because of the addiction to politicking rather than committing to human rights-based policies. Isn’t it better to hold on to integrity, uplift the lives of the most vulnerable in our society and risk losing an election, rather than win an election through the brutal treatment of society’s most vulnerable people? When political decisions continue to be ruthless, heartless or inhumane democracy in this wonderful country is on a slippery slide. Surely no Parliamentarian committed to improving the lives of all people living in Australia would consider this Migration Bill to be beneficial to the maturing of our Australian society. In rejecting the entirety of these Migration Act Bills Australia would have been on the path towards breaking the cycle of cruelty imposed upon us by our British forebears more than 200 years ago.
Sister Aileen Crowe PhD spent almost 20 years teaching in rural Papua New Guinea. She gained an Honours degree in Studies of Religion and Oral History at UPNG. On her return while co-ordinating the Justice and Peace office for the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese she first encountered people in need of Australia’s protection. This drove her to embark on research into the Department of Immigration. The lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic provided the psycholigical space to put her knowledge, and more than twenty years experience advocating for people seeking protection, into an accessible book.
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