Like many grumpy hacks from an age of lost standards, I’ve belittled colleagues’ usage of the perpendicular pronoun. We’re not the Mums needing attention – only the midwives bringing the stories of others into the world. We report and depart.

This philosophy now heads for the bin, driven by frustration and distress. Few are interested in a story that’s gnawing my conscience, so I need to get personal.

It’s about official cruelty and indifference in Australia and Indonesia to the plight of a group of asylum seekers that I’ve encountered while roaming the archipelago. Inadvertently, they’ve affected my life more than I’ve affected theirs through my reporting.

Some background to my beef:

The Hazara are a minority Islamic sect living in Afghanistan and nearby countries, mainly on sufferance in Pakistan.

They’re ethnically Mongolian and Central Asian. Many look more like southern Europeans than Asians.

The Taliban, who rule the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a fundamentalist political and religious movement that rules the landlocked country.

Soviet troops invaded in 1979 to prop up a Communist government and oppose the Islamic Mujahideen rebels backed by the US. The Reds were defeated in 1989.

After the 11 September 2001 WTC attacks by the Taliban ally al-Qaeda, the US tried its hand at vengeance. The war, which involved Australian troops, lasted until 2021 before Washington fled.

The Taliban now control the whole nation of about 45 million.

They’ve reportedly massacred thousands of Hazara and destroyed their ancient sites - most recently blowing up the two huge Bamyan Buddha statues in March 2021.

The international NGO Minority Rights Group blamed “the Taliban’s extreme reading of Islam that forbids representations of human features in art … local Hazaras saw the targeting of the statues as an assertion of Taliban dominance over their culture and homeland.”

The Hazara worked for the Western invaders as translators and in government – giving the Taliban another reason to hate. When the US-led forces crumpled, thousands fled the country as the Taliban took revenge.

Australia has the largest diaspora of Hazara outside Asia, 42,000. The US has about 31,000. They claim to be religious moderates and stress their adaptability.

They weren’t the only group fleeing persecution and trying to get to Australia. Refugees from Africa and the Middle East are also stranded in Indonesia, but can sometimes return safely when there’s regime change. The Hazara are the largest and most vulnerable.

When they first sought refuge, most were young men, often the eldest in the family entrusted with finding a new home for all.

Through a well-organised network, they legally flew from Pakistan or India to Kuala Lumpur and were then illegally ferried to Indonesia. People smugglers sent them on a three-day treacherous voyage to a remote Northern Australian beach.

The trade was expanding, and the Australian public was alarmed. The government’s hasty response was ill-considered. Prime minister Scott Morrison retrospectively announced:

“Asylum seekers who registered with UNHCR in Indonesia on or after 1 July 2014 will no longer be eligible for resettlement in Australia” – part of “the government’s ongoing work in the region to strip people smugglers of a product to sell to vulnerable men, women and children”.

It was also an appeasement to tense voters imagining a tsunami of Asians. As a side issue, it condemned thousands to a future gutted of purpose.

An asylum seeker who got to Indonesia in June 2014 might eventually snare a humanitarian visa but his latecomer mate will miss out forever.

In one of its nastier theological fabrications the Catholic Church invented purgatory – heaven’s waiting room where sins were cleansed, oftentimes by fire.

The medieval idea has been largely smothered by modern church teachings more in line with Christ’s compassion, but the worldly equivalent thrives next door in decrepit camps. The current euphemism is "involuntary immobility".

Cisarua is an overcrowded hill town about 70 km south of Jakarta. The cool climate draws rich Indonesians escaping from the world’s third most polluted city – and asylum seekers who pack abandoned villas.

Some Hazara have talents on the Australian skills shortage list. The men and few women I’ve met speak excellent English, which they’ve often taught themselves through watching TV programs.

What sort of society would abandon a stateless, persecuted group to a life without hope when we set the rules through a law without a use-by date?

The telling of this story carries no credentials other than outrage. My anger is with our reps in Canberra who let Murdoch set the agenda, not the electorate, and the politicians who fear for their jobs should they be labelled as opening the floodgates.

There are about 6000 Hazara in limbo in Indonesia; they’ve been rotting for a decade, forbidden to work and study. Measured administratively, economically or in terms of human rights, the situation is morally wrong.

Indonesia hasn’t signed the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, nor does it have a system to determine their status. So the issue has been flipped to the UN High Commission for Refugees**,** which is supposed to “identify solutions for refugees in the country”.

A ministerial source says Indonesia doesn’t want the Hazara resettled because they’re a useful deterrent to people smugglers.

I dispute this argument: The Hazara are almost all Shia Muslims, a sect brutally persecuted in both Afghanistan and Indonesia, where the principal faith is Sunni Islam.

The Indonesian police, immigration and security officials I’ve met tend to be fed up with overseeing the asylum seekers, particularly as most are penniless, so no longer worth shake-downs.

The Australian Government has run campaigns warning Indonesian fishers against ferrying asylum seekers.

I have yet to encounter proof that this has been effective, possibly because the message hasn’t been pushed hard or delivered by authorities that don’t command respect. So, back to lawmaking.

The Australian Government isn’t totally indifferent – it feeds the abandoned through the UN-related International Organisation for Migration.

Among the 30 bills elbowed through in the 2024 Parliamentary rush were three agreed by the government and Opposition targeting refugees. Human rights lawyer Alison Battison (another message ignorer) has said Australia is criminalising refugees.

“This rushed suite of legislation was not drafted in response to any pressing concern of national importance.

“Instead, its overriding purpose was and is to secure votes, so Labor can claim they are even more strict on border control and community safety than the Coalition.”

Till recently, help for asylum seekers was government business. Australia has followed Canada and developed the Community Refugee Integration and Settlement pilot “to give groups of locals the opportunity to welcome refugees … supporting them from day one”.

CRISP is now a permanent program available to refugees already in Australia or queuing with an appropriate visa. It’s not in the business of getting those stranded in Indonesia released.

Canberra has also appointed an _Ambassador_ to Counter Modern Slavery, People Smuggling and Human Trafficking. Career diplomat Jane Duke has the job, and it seemed from her list of responsibilities that she’d be interested in my research and ideas, so the go-to person.

She probably is, but that doesn’t mean she replies or even acknowledges messages and reminders, so that’s a dead end. Another has been the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime.

It was established in 2002 by more than 50 countries and international agencies. It’s based in Bangkok and co-chaired by Indonesia and Australia. I did get an acknowledgement and promise of attention. That was in June – I’m still waiting.

Those in the know allege it’s run out of energy and purpose.

My attempts to engage with big employers who might offer asylum seekers jobs, a necessary part of the CRISP process, have been a waste of time. I didn’t expect Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, who has a workforce of around 4500 and promotes her “kindness”, to respond. I was right.

Billionaire mining industry supremo Dr Andrew Forrest set up the Minderoo Foundation in 2001, “a proudly Australian philanthropy, working to forge a fair future by courageously challenging inequalities and campaigning for meaningful change”. Again, no reply.

Fortunately, the corporate indifference hasn’t infected individuals. Two of the most useful have been retired Senators I encountered as a journo long ago – Fred Chaney (former Lib) and Gareth Evans (ALP). They may be politically apart but have mutual respect that each man is dinkum.

Evans lobbied Julian Hill, the Assistant Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs.

Chaney put me in touch with a remarkable DIY group in WA, Grandmas for Refugees, that in turn has links to similar NGOs in the eastern states. In Indonesia, Monash-educated academic and political adviser Dr Dewi Fortuna Anwar has been constructively supportive.

In June 1989, Chinese troops in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square allegedly killed hundreds of unarmed peaceful protesters seeking political reform.

An emotional prime minister Bob Hawke did more than deplore. He restored Australian decency by extending temporary permits to Chinese students in Australia and subsequently giving permanent visas to 42,000. “A genuine rejection of injustice,” reported the ABC.

It forever changed their lives, and those of later generations. They were absorbed, have adapted and contributed

The 6000 Hazara rotting and unwanted in Indonesian limbo for a decade need a similar noble gesture from a leader driven by morality, not Murdoch. I guarantee the sky will not fall in.

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.