Last week, the Australian Government signed an agreement with the Government of Nauru to allow the deportation of a group of asylum seekers who had their visas cancelled on ‘character grounds’. While all of them have entered Australia without a visa, for some as far as we know this is their only ‘crime’. Apparently others have been convicted or awaiting trial in Australia for serious crime.
In demonstrating the ‘we’re tougher than you are’ claims to the Federal Opposition, the Albanese Government had been holding this group of asylum seekers in indefinite detention until the High Court ruled that was illegal. The government was forced to release them into the community to cries of derision from the Opposition. What both sides of politics apparently failed to consider is this group, like all groups of asylum seekers, are humans and deserve to be treated as such. The fact that some of them have committed crimes is irrelevant as we do not routinely hold Australian Citizens in indefinite detention if they have committed a serious crime and ‘done their time’. At best, this is a double standard, others would claim it is playing politics with people’s lives.
Although it seems that if you arrive in a remote area of the country in a probably unseaworthy fishing boat you are committing a heinous ‘crime’, but if you fly into the country on a tourist visa and don’t comply with the conditions there is barely a mention of your ‘crime’ in the media or government press releases. According to SBS News there are over 75,000 people in Australia that have overstayed their visa. However this isn’t a conversation starter about Australia’s poorly designed and inhumane asylum seeker policy.
This is about the process used by the Australian Government to literally buy a solution to a political problem. The Australian Government is paying the Nauru Government around $400 million to accept the ‘problem’ asylum seeker cohort plus about $70 million a year into the future. According to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, the deal
“expressly exclude procedural fairness from applying” when the government sought to deport noncitizens who have lost their visa.
Speaking to parliament, Burke said principles of “procedural fairness” needed to be suspended in some cases because those provisions “are being used by noncitizens to delay and frustrate their removal, at cost to the commonwealth in circumstances where it is neither necessary nor appropriate for it to continue to apply”.
Burke said the bill would mean that actions taken by government in order to resettle someone in a third country “are not conditioned on an obligation to afford procedural fairness”.
Yet the same government is cautiously avoiding meaningful action on a host of economic or environmental actions. You could ask why. Is it to do with not providing the Opposition or other conservative leaning groups material to attack the government?
In a statement, Burke said
anyone who doesn’t have a valid visa should leave the country” and that “this is a fundamental element of a functioning visa system.
It’s a pity the government doesn’t seem to have the same dedication in implementing controls on emissions so that future generations do actually have a ghost of a chance of being able to enjoy a climate similar to what we experience today. For example, the New Vehicle Emissions Scheme (NVES) has more lenient rules for some large utes and SUVs than it does for a small hatchback.In the scheme of things it’s probably more important to ensure future generations have a country to live in rather than trade political blows with ‘the other side’ on who is tougher on people that didn’t arrive in this country through ‘the usual channels’ with the ‘approved documentation’.
Why hasn’t the government used the powers that it’s huge majority has given it to eliminate tax rorts such as the ability to negatively gear a number of investment properties? Apart from the benefits derived from the collection of additional taxes, this would reduce pressure on housing prices far more than effectively funding the loan insurance for those purchasing a property with a 5% deposit. At the moment ‘investors’ who negatively gear residential properties can effectively outbid first home buyers because the negative gearing actually achieves a greater return if the purchase price is higher. If the negative gearing rule were changed to only allow one or maybe two residential properties to be negatively geared it would eliminate a lot of competition from the market, probably stabilising or even reducing house prices.
While Albanese’s changes to the Stage 3 tax cuts were a clever and effective way of redirecting benefit to where it was most needed, the current arguments around the changes to tax arrangements for those with superannuation accounts over $3million should be ignored. Superannuation was never designed to be a method of transferring wealth between generations, it was a means of ensuring all have an income stream that was drawn down during retirement, reducing the demand for an age pension to be the sole income source for those over 67. Given the average superannuation balance of a 65 year old person in Australia is around $400,000, those with a balance in the millions must be either planning an extravagant retirement or are using the system to avoid assisting in the funding of hospitals, roads and the multitude of other government services we all take for granted.
The real point here is if the government is happy in throwing ‘procedural fairness’ out the window when it is politically expedient – as with a demonised group of asylum seekers – why won’t they exhibit similar political backbone when the environmental and economic future of the country is at stake?
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The Albanese Government should remember that it doesn’t have the wafer-thin support that the Gillard Government did and has a greater majority than Tone the Botty’s circus did. The ONLY time when I agree with holding someone in detention or in prison indefinitely is if they are serial killers who are still unrepentant and still represent a danger to society.
The people who need to be deported are the hard-right Hansonists and media /press lackeys dividing the nations.
Australians are so brainwashe they can’t even see through what is happening here, let alone Gaza!!
Both major parties appear to be more focused on maintaining power and appeasing corporations and political donors than on acting in the best interests of all Australians or what is morally right. This constant focus on political point-scoring and donor priorities leaves little room for policies that genuinely serve the public good.
Agreed 2353NM, and Denis Hay.Both firmly in the grip of neoliberalism, and frightened shitless by Rupert’s barking stenographers.
Where’s that Royal commission into media?Under Toto’s mattress?
Things are looking up for the economy of Nauru thanks to the Australian taxpayer. The island republic reported a GDP figure in 2024 of $160 million, Nauru is number 195 in the ranking of GDP of 196 countries internationally.
The Albanese government has now agreed to pay Nauru more than $408 million to resettle several hundred of non-citizens.
The UN have urged Australia to halt deporting people to Nauru but in signing a memorandum of understanding with Nauru President David Adeang, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke also committed the Australian government to pay almost $70 million per year to cover the ongoing resettlement costs for the group of more than 350 people.
Nauru is an island measuring 6km long by 4km at the widest part with a population of around 12,000.
These ‘refugees’ are not suitable for resettlement in Australia due to various alleged criminal activities.
Does it make sense to bribe Nauru to take them on ? I don’t think so.
$400mill up front and $70mill per year … and the claim is that this is more cost effective than treating these refugees as what they are: people in need of assistance? Somehow the maths isn’t mathing, neither financially nor ethically.
This is a disgusting decision, heartless and while an impoverished Nauruan government is no doubt happy to see the money it’s telling that the UN not to mention the many human rights groups is asking Australia not to do this. I imagine the RWNJ’s whomarched yesterday are probably very happy it’s sad that the Labor government seems to be pandering to their demands. Shame.