Ten years gives perspective on the 'twin terrors' of 2001; the Tampa rescue and 9/11. The juxtaposition is especially poignant.
On 25 August 2001, 433 asylum seekers from a stricken vessel in the Indian Ocean were rescued by the captain of the Norwegian cargo ship Tampa, who was subsequently denied permission to enter Australian waters. On 11 September 2001, al-Qaeda launched four coordinated suicide attacks on US buildings using hijacked passenger aircraft.
Jesuit Refugee Service Australia director Father Aloysious Mowe referred to Tampa as the marker of a fundamental shift in the way refugees were regarded in Australian society.
The 9/11 attacks occurred as Australians were attempting to make sense of Tampa which, said Mowe, 'allowed former Prime Minister John Howard to treat asylum seekers as a national security issue that affected Australia's sovereignty rather than an issue regarding Australia's obligation to extend protection to people who are genuinely in need of such protection and who arrive in its territory.'
Before Tampa, refugees had been regarded as part of the general migrant population arriving in Australia and adding value to the country's economy and community life. After Tampa they were a threat to our sovereignty that was somehow grafted on to the sense of public malaise prompted by the 9/11 attacks on the sovereignty of the United States.
The irrational fear that was spawned ten years ago developed a life of its own, which politicians have variously kept alive and tried to contain. The asylum seekers, whom Australians might have reached out to with a sense of compassion, became objectified threats to our sovereignty that needed to be locked away or, better, prevented from reaching our borders by being placed in offshore detention.
The Gillard Labor Government had taken the political option to play to the fear by continuing the Howard Government's policy of offshore detention. It adopted the rhetoric of the Coalition that was part of a determination to 'stop the boats'. But the strategy came unstuck last week when the High Court ruled that the deal with Malaysia, and most likely other offshore arrangements, were illegal.
After the High Court ruling on Wednesday, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen struck a defiant tone, 'not ruling anything in or out in terms of our response'.
'While this is a blow, it does not undermine our resolve to break the people smuggler's business model through a regional arrangement.'
What was missing from the Government's response was acknowledgement of the asylum