Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction Is it possible for an Australian government to be humane towards asylum seekers, and what part do the people of Australia have to play in the process? In order to answer these questions, this thesis explores Australia’s responses to refugee and asylum seekers by government, media, and citizens, through a particular focus on Afghan Hazara refugees who settled in Murray Bridge, South Australia early this century. It presents an in depth exploration of the ‘boatpeople crisis’ faced by the government of Prime Minister John Howard, and in so doing provides new insights into the problem of asylum seekers faced by subsequent governments. The thesis examines one of the measures developed to prevent and deter arrivals of the ‘boatpeople’ introduced by the Howard government, the Temporary Protection Visa (TPV). Other studies have examined the effects of the visa on its holders, but this study focuses on the effects of the visa subclass on Australian attitudes towards TPV holders and asylum seekers. The main problem studied is how the integration of TPV holders played out in the face of legislation designed to prevent it. It examines the process of integration of TPV holders in the Murray Bridge community, tracing the transformation of attitudes amongst the residents until they were accepted as ‘mates’ and the town united with them to struggle against the severe conditions imposed by the visa. The results of the study show the power of face-to-face contact to overcome xenophobia, one of the major drivers of anti-asylum seeker policies in the developed world. It is expected that the findings from this research will 1 provide useful insights for the government and human rights and refugee advocacy organisations in dealing with the issue of asylum seekers in Australia. Although asylum applications lodged in industrialised countries have dropped somewhat since 2001 (UNHCR 2010b), ‘the political significance of migration far outweighs its numerical significance’ (Koser, 2007, 59), particularly concerning matters of asylum. It gives rise to intense and often bitter debates over social acceptance, competition for resources, and cultural identity. For asylum seekers themselves, the need to move clandestinely causes vulnerability to human rights abuses. The responses of states can mean the difference between life and death (International Council on Human Rights Policy 2010, v- vi) 1.1 Background Much of the public discourse around asylum seekers in developed countries, especially in those which have refugee resettlement programs, centres on whether they are as ‘deserving’ as those refugees who remain in refugee camps until they are resettled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR). In public discourse in these countries, refugees resettled through the UNHCR resettlement program are automatically considered to be 'deserving' of their places as new residents. Those who arrive without authorisation in order to claim asylum are suspected of being 'economic migrants' whose movement ipso facto is voluntary. They must earn the classification as 'deserving' by proving that their movement was indeed 'forced'. 2 People who enter a state without the proper authority are ‘irregular migrants’. These include people who remain in a country in contravention of their visa status, people moved by smugglers, victims of human trafficking, people seeking asylum who are subsequently found to have valid refugee claims, and also those who set out to deliberately abuse the asylum system (Koser 2005, 6). The classification of the movement of irregular migrants as ‘forced’ or ‘voluntary’ can have significant and often devastating effects on their lives, but in most cases it is impossible to tease out the two. The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) describes forced migration as ‘a general term that refers to the movements of refugees and internally displaced people (those displaced by conflicts) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects’ (FMO n.d a.). ‘Trafficking’ is an extreme form of forced migration, in which victims are ‘treated as merchandise’ and ‘owned by their traffickers’ (UNHCR 2006a, 3). Voluntary migrants on the other hand are those who are able to freely choose to stay or go, and to make the decision based on personal preference, such as tourists and traders. Richmond (1993) and Van Hear (1998) are among scholars who recognise the inadequacy of discrete classifications of forced and voluntary migration, and propose a continuum of proactive and reactive migration, of force and choice. Table 1.1 Force and choice in outwards and return migration Voluntary migration Involuntary Outward movement Labour migrants, professional Refugees, IDPs, development traders, tourists, students displacement, forcible relocation, disaster displacement Return movement Returning migrants, returning Deported or expelled migrants, refugees, voluntary repatriates, refugees subject to refoulement, voluntary returnees forced repatriates, forced returnees Source: Van Hear 1998, 42 3 Table 1.1 provides a matrix of ‘involuntary’ and ‘voluntary’, locating as ‘involuntary’ the forcibly displaced and relocated, IDPs (people forcibly displaced within their own countries), refugees, those deported or expelled, refugees subject to refoulement and forced returnees and repatriates. Labour migrants, professional traders, tourists, students, returning migrants, returning refugees, voluntary repatriates, and voluntary returnees are classified as voluntary migrants. The division represented by the matrix is not wholly satisfactory since in almost every situation there are varying degrees of choice and compulsion. Despite the impossibility of making a definitive decision in many cases, popular opinion towards asylum seekers often depends on these classifications. Each ‘type’ of forced migrant is recognised in legislation and policies and finds its legal and operational definition in a different instrument, and in several cases is provisioned by different instrumentalities (Forced Migration Online n/d b). Despite these definitions, it is often impossible to disentangle free from forced decisions. Migrations that prima facie appear motivated by economic reasons often involve a forced element (UNHCR 2000c, 112). Further complications arise when forced movement occurs along routes formerly established for the purposes of labour migration or trade. For example, Afghan Hazara asylum seekers, who have constituted the largest proportion of refugees in the world for the past decade, use the routes otherwise used to reach seasonal work in coalmines in Pakistan (Monsutti 2005, 101). Moreover, the degree of ‘force’ and ‘choice’ varies among individuals in almost every category and indeed, people may change categories over the course of their movement (Global Commission on International Migration 2005). Finally and most tellingly, the application of the categories varies depending on the perspective of the user. Governments which are called upon to offer protection have an incentive to classify undocumented 4 migrants as ‘voluntary’ in order to avoid obligations under international human rights treaties, whereas the same migrants may consider that they were ‘forced’ to leave their home countries, as may international humanitarian organisations. Government instrumentalities describe irregular migrants as ‘undocumented’ or ‘unauthorised’ and political and media rhetoric sometimes labels them as ‘illegal’. Rather than ‘irregular’ migrants, Castles and Miller (2003, 283) have coined the term ‘unwanted immigration’, which more aptly describes the situation. Virtually every country is now experiencing increasing manifestations of hostility and violence against irregular immigrants, including asylum seekers and refugees (Taran & Geronimi 2003, 8-9). The current hardening of attitudes towards asylum seekers across the developed world had its origins in the late 1980s and early 1990s when widespread economic restructuring caused growing unemployment levels which raised insecurity among workers. After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in September 2001, politicians and the media of developed countries began to portray all people crossing national borders, whether migrants or refugees, as potential terrorists and security threats. As well, the growth in migration from developing countries has given rise to notions of ‘floods’. Source nations have diversified and arrivals are no longer similar ethnically or culturally to resident populations, eliciting xenophobic responses. A decline in overall migrant skill and education levels, a result of the changing source countries (Williamson and Hatton 2004), provided yet another goad to negativity. Formerly, to most people in the developed world ‘refugee’ meant people far away in refugee camps, a few of whom, the most ‘deserving’, were resettled in developed countries 5 like Australia. Over the past four decades, however, increasing numbers of refugees have sought asylum in Europe, North America, and Oceania, whereas very few asylum seekers arrived in developed countries before that (Richmond 2002, 719). Refugee claimants use their own resources to reach developed countries and seek asylum. They do not fit the old frame of ‘refugee’, and are seen as ‘undeserving’. Moreover, the mixture of refugees and others in irregular migration flows has further confused the public, which has also fuelled vilification

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