Without a great deal of fanfare, the new government has ended the shameful ‘Pacific solution’ under which refugees were held in offshore camps, located on the territory of neighbouring countries which the Australian government bullied and bribed into hosting them. Most of the refugees held at the Nauru camp have been allowed to settle in Australia.
Defenders of the Howard government can make whatever claims they like about this evil system, whether to say that it was justified by results or to claim that Labor’s policy isn’t really all that different. The fact remains that this was a cruel and brutal response to community panic; panic the government itself did a great deal to stir up, and even more to exploit politically. Those responsible, most notably Howard himself and Phillip Ruddock, will carry the stain of the Pacific solution to their graves and beyond.
John Quiggin 
We will decide who comes to the Lodge and the circumstances in which they come.
So, instead of being held in awful detention centres overseas they’ll now be held in awful detention centres now?
Shameful? Cruel? Brutal? Stain?
Hyperbole overdrive today!
Shameful. Cruel. Brutal. Stain. Yes SATP, all the words are correct. Would you like to be treated like those refugees if you were in a desperate situation? The golden rule is to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself.
I await now from SATP another wild generalisation about how ALL refugees are cashed up queue jumping con artists and who deserve what they get. Ho hum.
jq
“will carry the stain of the Pacific solution to their graves and beyond.”
Totally unsubstantiated moral pyrotechnics, completely detached from the context of the policy. Yes, it is appropriate to end the policy now, but only because the policy was wildly successful in stoppong the boats coming in the first place.
It is interesting how JQ chooses to spin this. To me the more interesting story is the one told by the other Fairfax paper. The Age headline reads “Rudd Sends Home 16 Asylum Seekers.” We all breathlessly await an outpouring of rage by the “Not Happy John” set, UN Conventions in one hand, flowers for Malcolm Fraser in t’other. Maintain That Rage, Luvvies!
for me the important point is, john howard said “no” and no it was. now kevin says “yes” and yes it is. ordinary ozzies weren’t consulted either way. so they have no shame with johnny, no honor with kev.
maybe some shame in accepting the role of political cattle, but as long as we all agree not to mention that, she’ll be right.
“Those responsible, most notably Howard himself and Phillip Ruddock, will carry the stain of the Pacific solution to their graves and beyond.”
Howard and Ruddock;
two lawyers who knew exactly what they were doing to their fellow human beings for cheap political advantage.
Howard and Ruddock;
two lawyers who relished the implementation of their Pacific solution.
Howard and Ruddock;
two lawyers whose bastardry renders them worthy of ongoing national approbrium.
that’s an o
Utter nonsense JQ. They were treated humanely but not under the ridiculously generous Australian legal system, where you are a refugee unless proven otherwise.
Newsflash folks. No-one died from the Pacific solution. Everyone was assessed. The boats stopped coming – because they self assessed as non-refugees.
The only thing wrong with the way refugees are treated is that the detention centres are too harsh. The Australian ones are run by a US private prison providers. As an economist, JQ should spend more time denouncing the odious notion that prisons should be provided by private enterprise.
Standard ill-thought out knee jerk crepe from Ikonoklast. Ho hum, some things never change.
If I was running away from being killed, I would much prefer to be fed, housed, lawyered and doctored for free in Nauru or anywhere else.
I would consider it a shame that only Australia paid for all this for me, unlike the five other countries I had passed through on the way.
Compares quite favourably.
Good Ole Oz! We can hold our head high.
‘The fact remains that this was a cruel and brutal response to community panic; panic the government itself did a great deal to stir up, and even more to exploit politically. Those responsible, most notably Howard himself and Phillip Ruddock, will carry the stain of the Pacific solution to their graves and beyond’.
This isn’t a fact. Its a viewpoint.
The Coalition admitted more refugees (around 12,000 per year) than the previous Hawke/Keating governments. It wasn’t a response to ‘community panic’ but to stop a potential flood of queue jumpers.
Yes it did work and that’s why it looks like a soft option for the new PM to abolish it. He does not now have much of a problem to address – but give it a few years.
JG at #6, I must say I’m struck by the ease with which Labor has managed to pair the scrapping of the Pacific solution with an utterly routine application of longstanding policy, and come across as both toughminded and humane. There was never any chance that the Indonesian fishers would qualify as refugees, here or anywhere else. And, as well as getting rid of an awful policy, they’ve freed (IIRC) around $300 million to spend on better things.
I’m greatly encouraged by your reaction as well. At this rate, Rudd will be able to dismantle Howard’s legacy almost completely while keeping the culture warriors happy with trivial scraps.
Nicely put viewpoint.
HC- there never was any so-called flood. Nor any community panic until the coalition created it! Fact – I spent five years of my life airborne as a maritime patrol captain looking for the hordes. There never were any! Unless a few dozen miserable left over Indonesian fishing vessels flogged off to transport the desparate counts. Meanwhile while we spent thousands of hours and countless millions of taxpayers funds in the search for the brown hordes from asia the real villains foreign fishing vessels operating in Australian waters were having a field day. The downside of the Tampa era is the abrogation by the Howard-Ruddock team of centuries of maritime law of rescuing those in peril on the sea. Ask the Norwegian government! Building Oz versions of Guantanemo Bay in Nauru and draping it up as some form of aid was and is simply codswallop. Had we been supporting our Pacific neighbours with something else even that would probably not have been necessary.
The “Pacific Solution” was a panic-stricken annulment of the rule of law.
The “Pacific Solution” entailed a curtailment of judicial competency over selected areas of Australian territory for selected juridical purposes.
Thus, illegal immigrants who found their way into Australia via airports (by far the largest category of illegal immigrants) continued to be dealt with by judicial processes. Those landing on certain beaches in Australia, whether by leaky fishing boat or by luxury yacht, were dealt with by executive means.
The so-called “solution” as radical as it was, turned a blind eye to the vast bulk of illegal entrants into the country.
The policy was a bad joke.
I hope the ridiculous concept of an immigration zone gets scrapped next.
The hordes are coming! The hordes are coming!
What is it about some of the comments above that reminds me so much about the era of White Australia?
Hey, wingnut harry, satp etc…How many of the tampa passengers were deemed to be legitimate refugees again?
As usual, JQ is right, and you pragmatic moral bankrupts are wrong…Why do you all bother?
Howard, Ruddock and Downer ( to single out only three) were/are grifters, to defend these urgers makes you in collusion. Sleep well……
MH, Obviously the searches and the tough policy were designed to prevent a flood. You can judge whether there was no need or whether the policy was just successful. But illegal immigration into the US for a time was over 1 million per year. You cannot assume there would be no problem here – even if being surrounded by water helps.
Melanie, Stop using ridicule when you have no argument. Both sides of politics in Australia agree border protection is important. Events in West Papua suggest the potential for a huge problem. We took huge numbers of refugees in the past from Indo-China.
You cannot legitimately characterise such concerns as ‘the hordes are coming’ and dismiss people who raise such concerns as racists. You are showing your own prejudices and your own inability to argue a case when you resort to such language.
“As usual, JQ is right”? ROFL.
And if all the “passengers” on the Tampa were refugees, what is your point exactly?
How many of them were Indonesians escaping Indonesia? How many were 4th, 5th & even more steps removed from their country of origin. In all their international travels after leaving Afghanistan/Pakistan/wherever, why did none manage to find just ONE United Nations facility for dealing with refugees.
After all, they managed to find a clandestine leaky boat on a small Indonesian island.
That’s a rather fine distinction hc. Maybe if Melanie had written ‘the flood’s coming’ you would have accepted her point. No?
Umm, maybe that we treated genuine refugees as if they were criminals? It’s not a crime to be a refugee (well, not according to the UN policies we signed off on).
HC, it was you who used the term ‘flood’. That is a highly emotive term (implying the very panic that our host mentioned), yet you produce it as if it was some kind of fact. In reality there was neither a flood nor a potential one.
So before you come to conclusions about my stability or otherwise, watch your own language.
Not a fine distinction zoot – if the policy worked you won’t observe the flood. Is that too hard for you?
BTW we do not accept all refugees – nor does any country. We have a quota that is generous by international standards.
The SE Asian countries and Japan accept zero. But they are excused because we are dirty white racists who lack compassion and they are not.
Our posts crossed Melanie but the same simple point seems to escape you as zoot.
I didn’t question your stability Melanie I said your proclivity to throw dirt (‘racist’, ‘hordes’) suggests you cannot manage an argument. Your last response to a claim I did not make confirms my view.
WTF? My point was simply that a flood of refugees would be exactly the same as a horde of refugees.
Alex, I “should not” be here? “I am semi-literate”? I add “nothing”?
Bigotry certainly won’t be dead on this site whilst you have a keyboard.
I am not yet banned from this site for having viewpoints which are not 100% in alignment with those of the administrator. Thus if you desire only to have your prejudices reinforced, google will find plenty of more suitable sites to occupy you until JQ gets around to censoring me for harbouring “incorrect” thoughts.
Sorry, HC I misread ‘inability’. I have trouble with small font. But then, I didn’t use the word ‘racist’ either.
Here, instead are some data from the UNHCR statistical yearbook (2001, 2005).
In 2001, the year of the Tampa, Australia received a total of 11,583 applications for asylum (as distinct from refugee resettlements from other countries). Canada received 45,804, Germany 192,228, the UK 42,200, the US 395,864. The total for 38 industrialized countries was 595,000.
Our total for the entire decade 1992-2001 was 1.6% of the developed country total of 5,537,161 applications. In 1991 we had actually received 16,743 applications, which is 135% of the 2001 total and in 1996-97 15,240 and 12,677 respectively. In other words the number of asylum seekers reaching our shores was stable or declining by the time of the Tampa incident – and scarcely a flood. I suppose the numbers went up and down according to the state of the world’s crises.
In 1991 the largest source countries of people claiming asylum in the industrialised countries were the ex-Yugoslavia and Romania; in 2001 they were Afghanistan and Iraq. Spot the difference?
Re Japan and SE Asia: it doesn’t do to argue against an indefensible position by pointing the finger at somebody else.
SATP it has been a tough time for you, over the last two weeks, still many have appreciated your continued outdated work.
It reminds us why we voted against your type of world view. Peace, brother.
Ah, a troll rears it’s head.
Joe2, you have yet to explain your rationale for saying that “treating people fairly” for me will be a new experience.
https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/01/john-howard-a-political-obituary/#comment-201978
This remark is unwarranted, without basis, unfair, stupid, ill-advised, unconstructive, wrong and libellous.
An apology is in order.
HC, you wanted to argue that we are generous by international standards. I don’t think so. Here again are some bits from the UNHCR 2005 yearbook again:
The highest ranked developed country is Sweden with 12 refugees per 1000 population. So it really depends on what you mean by ‘international standards’. In reality, we are only more ‘generous’ than the USA.
Refugee population by country of asylum 2004 (000s)
Australia 63.5 (3.2 per 1000 population)
Canada 141.4
Denmark 65.3
Germany 876.6
Netherlands 126.8
Sweden 73.4
UK 298.8
USA 420.9
HC, In my last point, I didn’t include the countries which, as you rightly pointed out, don’t accept refugees at all, or in the case of Japan in such pathetic numbers that it doesn’t matter – but among the rich countries, those in which racism is an acceptable creed are rather few.
It is also interesting to ask why countries like Tanzania, Pakistan, Iran and Chad have the actual, as opposed to the imaginary, flood. I would suggest that the vast majority of refugees are (1) not treated generously by anyone’s standards and/or (2) would prefer to stay as near as possible to home in case they can go back home.
Melanie, They are interesting statistics that I have not seen before. The basis for my statement was the ratio of the flow of current refugee migrants (not the stock) to population on which basis I believe Australia does well.
The developing country statistics you cite seem to relate to different sorts of intakes – neighbouring wars and so on. I’d want to think about these.
And beyond?
It’s all academic now because multiculturalism is dead or at the very least having the last rites administered
http://www.slattsnews.observationdeck.org/?p=2209
Perhaps Howard and Ruddock were our last little self indulgent spasm of nostalgia eh?
And don’t you just love the Kuwaiti television debate? Like our intellectual ABC, they brought in the token apostate supporter, just for a bit of balance.
HC, I have examined the flow data and Australia does rather better, it is ranked 8th among industrialized countries in terms of the number of UNHCR ‘people of concern’ that it accepted per 1000 population during 1996-2005. However, among the top 15 of those countries (I couldn’t be bothered going further), it ranks last among those which accept people who turn up at the border seeking asylum.
Basically, countries like Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands and UK only accept people whom we would call ‘queue jumpers’. In Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Denmark, Canada and Austria, a large majority of acceptances were ‘queue jumpers’.
In Canada, 55% of acceptances were asylum seekers who got classified as genuine refugees, in Australia only 18%. Different standards being applied? Or a different bunch of traffickers? I doubt the latter since I have always been inclined to see the traffickers as the problem rather than the refugees themselves. Indeed, I would go as far as to suggest that the diminution of asylum seeker numbers in recent years has much more to do with AFP collaboration with the Indonesians than it has to do with ‘tough’ border controls.
Perhaps the demise of the Pacific solution is to be regretted – in Nauru people were assessed by the UNHCR and most of them got refugee status. If you actually make it to the Australian Immigration Zone, it seems that your chances are not so good!
The policy on asylum-seekers under the Howard Govt was mostly policy-on-the-run with strong tendencies towards the hysterical and cowardly.
It’s hard to see how, when viewed from an historical perspective, these policies will seem anything other than an embarrassment, at best.
Further HC, why should the geographical location of the refugee make a difference? Refugees are defined by the fact that they cannot (or have a reasonable fear that they cannot) safely go home, not by the particular camp or country in which they are living. Nor does the fact that they may or may not have been able to bring out some or all of their savings make a difference to their refugee status.
Melanie,
Refugess must be starving caricatures, and should wait patiently for the wheels of bureaucracy to turn. Any attempts at initiative (ie. saving themsleves) will be frowned upon.
HC – Being surrounded by ocean is indeed a formidable barrier to illegal entry which is why so few attempt to arrive this way. However I would return to the issue of the strategy, I would argue that it was always ill conceived and politically motivated. Travel by boat is for the desperate and ignorant, The savvy illegal immigrant arrives like everybody else in comfort on a 747 with dodgy papers. Running a air-maritime blockade strategy was completely misplaced. I recall having my Xmas ruined some years back to conduct ‘extra’ patrols could be run up North. I recall the widespread and I conclude politically driven coverage in the media with Ministers gravely intoning the ‘hunt’ was on. What were we looking for, a possible boat load, what did we find, nothing. We did find several large Taiwanese registered commercial fishing vessels but there were no maritime assets to stop them so they simply sailed back out of the EEZ. I also recall a commercial shipping vessel that simply pulled up outside of Cairns and dropped several dozen ex PRC citizens on to the main beach of a suburb of Cairns.
Whether or not we as a nation are prepared to shelter and care for people who have made the journey is another issue and one properly debated. The strategy and policy as I understand it merely covered up the gross incompetence and failure of the Department of Immigration to be able to distinguish or rank the merit or otherwise of any arrivals, no matter how they got here. The Palmer Report clearly demonstrated the competency of Immigration in that regard. If the Immigration Department could not distinguish legitimate citizens from illegal entrants what confidence could any one have they would do the same with poor buggers who risked their lives in leaking rotten wooden boats. Thus in my view the whole Pacific solution was a gross over reaction that merely diminished us morally and eroded our civil and legal values. All in all from my perspective an appalling episode in our history.
Finally I would not draw any competent analogy between the US and Australia. The US has porous borders that attach geographically to poor South American nations. They have many millions of illegal immigrants, who incidentally I understand from some American economists help smooth out labour participation rates and distort other economic labour statistics in the US because they are not officially counted.
Pr Q says:
Bugger forgot to close quote tags. Sorry webmaster.
Tragedies like this were a routine occurrence before Howard’s tough border protection policy “stopped the boats from coming”:
Hundreds of people were drowning in the passage accross the Indian Ocean but the liberal-Left did nothing because the asylum seekers were a politically useful constituency to use as a stick to beat Howard.
It was Howard who enforced strict rules of the sea and stopped this exploitative and dangerous practice. I daresay that being deterred and/or detained is better than being drowned.
The Pacific Solution was only one part of this successful policy. Which should be looked at in totality before liberal-Leftists get on their very shaky high horses.
Asylum seekers were a useful stick to beat Howard in the same way a Kamikaze plane was a useful tool wo enjoy the spoils of Japanese victory vs the Allies.
The Tampa issue destroyed Beazley’s career. Beazley tried the small target strategy. It didn’t work.
The liberal left could have played a political game like Beazley, but they didn’t.
Their game wasn’t political, it was moral.
I know I risk Godwin’s Law, so I will leave this as my last contribution to this thread. I am currently reading “Schindler’s List” having recently completed Art Spiegalman’s masterpiece “Maus”, and it seems to me Howard and Ruddock could have been working from the notes of the late Dr Goebbels.
We insisted that asylum seekers, once behind the razor wire, would have no names; they would be known by a number. A formidable amount of energy and expense was spent telling the populace at large that these people were not worthy of our compassion, even though we are a compassionate people. In fact we were encouraged to think of these wretches as non-people (and judging from some commentary here it worked really well). For the Pacific Solution we established our detention centres offshore (if memory serves none of the Jewish ‘detention centres’ were on the sacred ground of mother Germany). I’m sure there are other parallels.
For this, I believe Prof Q’s statement that those responsible will carry the stain to their graves and beyond is fair and reasonable.
Memory serves you very poorly Zoot.
The list is far from complete, but you may be familiar with some of the names below:
Sachsenhausen
Ravensbruck
Bergen-Belsen
Buchenwald
Dachau