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I watched the 'crying chairs' from my psychology clinic disappear into the truck. Many people over the years had nestled in one of those voluminous chairs and wept, whispered, or shouted their rage, sorrow and despair. Now it was time to leave my counselling office so I surrendered my sturdy armchairs for a greater good.
The PNG solution includes permanent exclusion from Australia in a small, poor and violent country already unable to accommodate the refugees from West Papua whom it hosts. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus claims it complies with international law. A quick glance at the much put-upon Refugee Convention suggests this is may be a rather optimistic assessment.
This bold move might stop the boats in the short term. If it does, we need after the election to recommit ourselves to providing better regional upstream processing and protection for asylum seekers stranded in Indonesia and Malaysia. Let's hope that whoever is in government after the election can call a truce on the race to the bottom and commit to the hard diplomatic work that is needed.
When policies affect people's lives, imaginative intelligence should come first into play. It is the inclination to see people, not simply as the objects of policy, but as persons each with their own face and life story. The Pope exemplified this when he visited Lampedusa, 'Italy's Christmas Island', to mourn the dead and console the living. And in so doing he stated the priority for others.
If there's one thing Bob Carr's recent comments on asylum seekers demonstrated it was that our politicians think they can say anything they want about 'boat people' and not be held to account. As a society we have been captured by the lies and easy phrases; our view of the world bears too little resemblance to the truth of it, and in this we are doomed to live small and impoverished lives.
It is pleasing that PolitiFact is able to demonstrate that foreign minister Bob Carr's claim that boat people 'are not people fleeing persecution ... they are coming here as economic migrants' is 'mostly false'. But even if Carr's claim was mostly true, how does discussion of the comparatively small number of economic migrants justify its place on the agenda, compared with issues such as the mental health of Australia's youth?
Senator Carr's comments about 'economic migrants' and asylum seekers from 'majority groups' show a lack of understanding of the separation of powers, the rule of law and the refugee assessment process in Australia. It is remarkable that, when confronted with the fact that the numbers of people meeting the refugee criteria are high, Carr's solution is to change the rules.
For refugees election years are like duck hunting season. Even dragon flies tremble. So it is not surprising that Bob Carr brought out the big guns that the Rudd Government will use. His claim that most asylum seekers are economic migrants, come from majority religious and tribal groups, and are too easily given protection visas, is a political response to an intractable situation and should be seen us such.
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