Australian government's asylum seeker policies criticised again
Updated
Australia's often heated debate over asylum seekers has flared again with the conservative opposition reiterating claims the Rudd government's policies are soft and encouraging so called illegal boat arrivals.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Sharman Stone, Australian Opposition Immigration spokesperson; Michaelia Cash, Australian Oppositon Senator; Brendan O'Connor, Australian Minister for Home Affairs.
Marion Le, Migration agent
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MOTTRAM: Australia's Opposition is pushing for an inquiry into border protection issues, claiming the easing of some of the more punitive aspects of the previous Howard government's policies is causing more unauthorised arrivals to the country. The Opposition's Immigration spokesperson Sharman Stone says the evidence is in the arrival of 32 boats with almost 12-hundred people in Australian waters since the Rudd government came to power at the end of 2008.
STONE: Will the PM now conceded that he has lost control of who comes into Australia?
MOTTRAM: Senator Michaelia Cash is another Australian opposition member.
CASH: Based on last week's rate of unlawful entry we could see between eight and ten thousand people attempting to enter Australia unlawfully in one year.
MOTTRAM: The government for its part won't be allowing an inquiry, particularly with unauthorised arrivals running at about half the rate of the Howard government years when about 13-thousand people arrived.
Still Canberra repeatedly presses home it's credentials on border security. Home Affairs minister Brendan O'Connor.
O'CONNOR: This government takes border protection seriously and will continue to combat people smugglers, will continue to disrupt their ventures and work with our counterparts in the region to prosecute people smugglers and make sure that we smash the syndicates and prevent the likelihood of people arriving on our shores.
MOTTRAM: The Rudd government is spending 654-Million Australian dollars to fight people smuggling, including funding the International Organisation for Migration to stop asylum seekers in second countries, like Indonesia. Last year, more than 11-hundred people were detained by Indonesia recent reports indicate many Afghans fleeing violence in their homeland where Australian soldiers are among the fighters are being sent back to Afghanistan by Indonesian authorities and the I-O-M.
But long-time refugee advocate and migration agent, Marion Le, says Australia's effort isn't going where it is most needed, especially when some applicants for asylum are waiting three or four years to be processed.
LE: If we start to look at the situation in the countries of origin which are creating the refugees, the situations in the countries of first asylum where thousands of people come across the borders almost every day, and then we look at what could we be doing to start processing people much more rapidly in those countries I think then the issue of people smugglers will largely go away.
MOTTRAM: And Ms Le says reports that some people have been found on people smuggler boats carrying UN refugee documentation underlines shortcomings in the refugee processes.
LE: I mean Australia should be saying okay if the UN has determined these people to be refugees then we will do our part very quickly at resettling them, and if we do that, surely we're going to be stopping people getting into boats. Its only in desperation that people will take to the sea like that. Let's remember that most people in Afghanistan have never seen the sea.
MOTTRAM: The issue of poor resourcing for asylum processing is further highlighted by the fact that until recently Australian authorities had warehoused two-thousand people, mostly from Pakistan, in Dubai legitimate applicants for asylum caught in limbo because of the lack of resources to complete their resettlement.
