Temperature rises in Australia's asylum seeker debate
Updated
Australia's already volatile debate on asylum seekers continues to escalate, even as an international expert charged with thinking about Australia's international image has warned the issue could yet seriously damage the country's standing.
As two more boats carrying asylum seekers were intercepted by Australian border authorities, Parliamentarians in Canberra were delving deep for some of their most rancorous exchanges on the issue yet. And Canberra denied it was negotiating a per head bounty with Indonesia to fund extra efforts to stop boats and to process those who seek refuge.
Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Wilson Tuckey, Liberal Party MP; Kevin Rudd, Australian Prime Minister; Malcolm Turnbull, Australian Opposition leader; Simon Anholt, British consultant on national image; Peter Woolcott, Australia's Ambassador on People Smuggling
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MOTTRAM: The divide in Australian politics is now so deep over the issue of border security, and asylum seekers arriving by boat, that not even appeals from respected church leaders for saner voices could stop a descent to new lows.
MONTAGE: There could be the occasional terrorist in a boatload of people. / a crude exercise in rank politics / by this contrived this bogus outburst of hysteria and indignation.
MOTTRAM: And as the rhetoric flew, quite coincidentally the Australian government was parading a British expert, Simon Anholt, who's working with Canberra a plan to re-brand the country internationally. Striding straight into the verbal mire, he had a quiet caution.
ANHOLT: One of the great advantages of having a powerful and positive national image is that it is an insurance policy against things going wrong. People will continue to trust you. Not forever, but for a little while.
MOTTRAM: Australian political discussions are often notably robust, but this issue taps some vital political nerves and pits toughness against humanity.
To straddle that divide, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is saying that his policies are both tough and humane, with their focus on stopping boats while working with countries like Indonesia to assess asylum seekers, many of whom are taken by Australia, or processing them in Australian facilities on Christmas Island and then resettling those found to be refugees. Australian Opposition politicians are playing a card that worked for them when in government in the past, the issue of border security, saying that increasing boat arrivals show Mr Rudd is simply not tough enough.
Continuing to declare that so called push factors are behind the recent arrivals -- strife in countries like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan -- the Rudd government's reliance on Indonesia was tested at a Senate Committee hearing. Australia's Ambassador for People Smuggling, Peter Woolcott had nothing but the highest praise for Indonesia efforts in the area.
WOOLCOTT: We have enormous confidence in the co-operation we've been getting from Indonesia in the past and will continue to get in the future. It's a genuinely excellent relationship, it's a partnership in dealing with what is a regional problem and requires regional solutions.
MOTTRAM: But a persistent question from Ambassador Woolcott's inquisitors was the reality of more and more boat arrivals in Australian waters. They demanded to know what immediate action was being taken, including whether media reports were true that Australia was set to pay a bounty, a fee per head for each asylum seeker prevented from coming on to Australia. There would be no price per head but, he said but in Australia's current discussions with Indonesia on the issue, money was on the table.
WOOLCOTT: We are genuine partners with Indonesia in these issues, we don't want to leave indonesia with an unfair burden in the management of this regional problem, we want to play our part and so costs will be discussed yes.
MOTTRAM: The Ambassador said a lot of effort was focussed on trying to break up the criminal activity of people smugglers who were not only the facilities but also the spruikers to the desperate, he said . But often laws between countries facing the same problems were not consistent, or even present.
WOOLCOTT: For example in Indonesia they have no law against people smuggling, per se, what they have to do is bring charges, for example, harbouring, which is the charge they tend to use in Indonesia in relation to people smuggling issues, in fact Captain Bram, the notorious Captain Bram was convicted on harbouring charges a couple of years ago. And so obviously one of the areas we're very keen to progress is the whole issue of harmonisation of laws and considerable work is going into that both bilaterally, in bilateral discussion with the Malaysians and the Indonesians but also through the Bali process.
MOTTRAM: The Ambassador though signalled things often don't go at the pace Australia would want. He spoke of countries working "at their own speeds" .. an insufficient set of explanations for those wanting to put an immediate stop to asylum seekers on boats heading for Australia.
