Australia’s handling of unwanted migrants had been looked at by European states with covert envy. Faced with a tidal wave of illegal immigrants, in 2001 the Australian government cut a deal with Papua New Guinea to open a detention center. Migrants picked up at sea would be routed there or to a similar facility on Nauru, the world’s smallest state with a population of just 10,000 people.
The Australian navy and coastguard mount intensive sea and air patrols of the country’s northern waters. The policy is uncompromising. Any intercepted migrant boat is generally towed back out to sea, often to the edge of Indonesian territorial waters. If the craft is unseaworthy, the asylum-seekers are transferred to lifeboats and then sent on their way. Only one migrant vessel has actually managed to reach Australian shores in the last year. And then the occupants have been sent to Papua New Guinea or Nauru. On the latter, the desperation among detainees, who come from as far away as Iraq, Iran, Syria and Afghanistan as well as Far Eastern countries, has been such that they have gone on hunger strike. During a recent UN visit, an Iranian migrant set himself on fire. Badly burnt, he was treated locally. An Australian immigration minister said there was no way that detainees could use self-harm as a way to make it to Australia because they needed emergency medical treatment.
Now, however, judges in Papua New Guinea have ruled the local detention camps illegal and have ordered their closure. The decision is a headache for the government which has been receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from Canberra in return for hosting the camps. The Papua New Guinea authorities have said that they will grant residential rights to migrants with genuine asylum credentials, who are fleeing persecution in their home countries. But the harsh truth is that many of the migrants decided to head for Australia in search of a better life rather than fleeing from oppression. It must be hoped that Syrians will be treated sympathetically. But Australia is unmoved by the decision of Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court judges. Its immigration minister has repeated that none of the asylum-seekers will be allowed to come to Australia. The hardline, however, is not without its critics. The Australian Human Rights Commission said that the Supreme Court’s decision demonstrates that when it comes to immigration, Australia is increasingly out of step with the international community.
Australia does not have a particularly creditable immigration history. For years the country quietly operated a Whites-only policy. Assisted passage for British nationals was succeeded by a welcome for Europeans, so that for instance Melbourne now has a Greek population second only to that of Athens. However, with the country’s involvement in the Vietnam war, an influx of Vietnamese and Chinese saw the growth of a vibrant multi-cultural society which has been of significant economic benefit. Yet far away from the media spotlight of Europe’s migrant challenges, the Australians have seen fit to erect a near-impenetrable barrier against asylum-seekers. Given the actions in Australia of a few lunatics claiming to be part of Daesh (the self-proclaimed IS), Islamophobia is rife and the government in Canberra seems sure to continue to resist its humanitarian duty, especially toward Muslim migrants.
