Asylum seekers create political storm for Australian PM
Updated
Australia's Prime Minister is under mounting domestic pressure over what's been dubbed his 'Indonesia solution', which has so far been anything but a solution to the futures of two groups of Sri Lankan asylum seekers. One group, on board a boat in Merak for more than two weeks, still refuses to disembark. And there's speculation that force could yet be used to get another group of 78 people off the Australian customs vessel the Oceanic Viking. Kevin Rudd is facing increasingly disparaging headlines and he's also fending off growing criticism in his own circles.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speaker: Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister; Julia Irwin, Australian Labor Party MP; Paul Howes, Australian Workers Union; Dave Oliver, Australian Manufacturing Workers Union
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MOTTRAM: On the floor of the Australian Parliament the asylum seeker issue has dominated all week, driven predictably by the conservative opposition parties, claiming repeatedly that Labor has lost control of Australia's borders. They've also leapt on newspaper headlines declaring Prime Minister Rudd's deal with Indonesia, to help stem the flow of asylum seekers by boat, is all at sea. The Australian government has been trying to push an alternative interpretation of Australia's role over the 78 Sri Lankans now refusing to leave the Australian customs vessel, the Oceanic Viking. The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Parliament:
RUDD: In my discussions with the President of Indonesia in Jakarta at the time of his inauguration he and I discussed the humanitarian circumstances which arose from this particular vessel, a vessel in distress at sea, which was in the Indonesian search and rescue area and they, as I recall did not have a vessel close by and made a request of Australia to assist. Mr Speaker in the discussions with Indonesian President arising from the humanitarian circumstances concerning this vessel and the particular concerns of a child at that stage reported to be ill on that vessel, then the Indonesians of course agreed to provide for that vessel to go ashore in Indonesia.
MOTTRAM: Of course it hasn't satisfied opposition critics. Of more concern to the Australian government though could be creeping signs that in its own ranks there's displeasure. Julia Irwin is a Labor Party MP who has broken ranks. She's advising her leader to follow the example of a past, conservative Australian prime minister who faced in the 1970s an influx of Indo-Chinese refugees.
IRWIN: Why can't we now sit down, opposition and government in a bipartisan way, people tend to forget these are human beings, these are people who are trying to come to Australia and I think it's absolutely disgusting that we're not sitting down with the opposition on a bipartisan way. (Journo: Should they be brought to Australia?) If they are genuine refugees, yes they should be, thank you.
MOTTRAM: And from Labor's traditional support base, the trade union movement, there's growing criticism too. Paul Howes leads the Australian Workers Union and has long been outspoken on people smuggling and refugee issues.
HOWES: I didn't join the Labor Party to discriminate against the most vulnerable people in the world.
MOTTRAM: Paul Howes went on to accuse his own government of failing to rise above crass racism, calling on Kevin Rudd to show leadership, to change a debate that has long bordered on xenophobia, once and for all. And if one union leader's trenchant criticism of the Rudd government's strategy wasn't enough, another followed. Dave Oliver heads the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union.
OLIVER: What we advocate is a humane solution and having 78 refugees on a leaky boat is not the way to go. And Paul's articulated there is some hysteria being whipped up because we've got a small number of asylum seekers arriving here by boat and it's being whipped up, and we're being translated to some of the issues and the debates that we had 15-odd years ago, and I think that's the wrong place to be.
MOTTRAM: There is concern in the ranks of the Rudd ministry and backbench that there appears to be no easy win on this issue, with some Rudd government staff probing in private discussions for hints of a way out. So far, it's a low level rumble, with Mr Rudd still well ahead in opinion polls, giving him a lot of political capital on an issue where a tough image can be popular. From the perspective of the international human rights watchdog, Human Rights Watch though, Kevin Rudd's explanation that the Sri Lankans should go to Indonesia because they were picked up in Indonesian waters is not good enough. Human Rights Watch Asia Director Brad Adams says Australia can't be proud of sending asylum seekers to a poor country with inadequate resources and a poor record.
ADAMS: If we look back at what happened with the Burmese Rohingya who went in large numbers to South East Asian countries last year, many of them ended up in camps in Indonesia, in very appalling conditions. There were beatings in camps that have been verified and documented. And the conditions were so bad in some of the camps that many of the people being held in them escaped.
MOTTRAM: It's a scenario that has union leader Paul Howes predicting that some in the Rudd government who've failed to speak up will one day regret it, just as earlier this year some members of the previous Howard government spoke of their regret over silent acquiescence to even tougher asylum seeker policies back then.
