HUMAN RIGHTS AND DUTIES.

Remarks by Ian Macphee on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2001.

Most Australians know they live in the Lucky Country. Most see themselves as fair and kind. At this time of international uncertainty, therefore, it is fitting that we should resolve to be more generous in our aid donations to the millions in destitution overseas and pressure our Government to accept more refugees. Three months ago, in response to a gross abuse of human rights, our major political parties joined the United States and United Nations in condemning acts of terror in the U.S. that caused the deaths of civilians from all continents.
Each subsequent day has raised human rights issues. Unexploded bombs become landmines; militia steal food supplies intended for starving civilians; prisoners are massacred; alleged terrorists will face secret American military courts; but American officers will not face any International Court for alleged involvement in breaches of the Geneva or other Conventions.

On this 10 December we recall that a month ago we voted in an election in which our major parties were united against the rights of people fleeing the very tyranny they condemned. As both parties supported American bombing of the Taliban, they were also united in their determination that those fleeing tyranny would not be welcome in Australia. In the five years of the Howard Government that flight from tyranny has been massive. While over two million were sheltered in Pakistan, hundreds of thousands fled to other nations, some finally finding refuge in Indonesia, our neighbour plagued by a weakened economy and an internal refugee problem of over a million citizens. Yet our Government took no action to assist Indonesia and other nations to which Afghan refugees fled. Nor did it work with the UNHCR to find host countries to take those fleeing persecution. For, to persuade other nations to take more refugees, our Government would have had to be more humanitarian also. But this Government does not want migrants of any kind. After five years of failing to find a humane multilateral solution, the Government seemed surprised that desperate people should part with the last of their meagre wealth to buy a berth on a leaky boat to Australia.

With an election imminent, an unpopular Government used the war on terrorism and increased refugee arrivals to heighten Australian xenophobia in its opportunistic desire to recover popularity. With widening gaps between rich and poor, it was easily able to build resentment against refugees by calling them "queue jumpers". While arrivals jumped the queue of refugees in UNHCR camps, Australians wishing to bring in family members construed it as further deferring their prospects in the, separate, migration queue. The Government did not disabuse them. Anger rose when "queue jumpers" were portrayed as culturally alien. The Government and its media mimics did that with devastating skill. Yet, with 21 million refugees in the world, our paltry intake of 8,000 (and 4,000 special humanitarian cases) is absurd and insulting. With a supine Opposition, the basic human rights of desperate people are ignored. Some of those now in razor wired jails in our harsh desert are from persecuted minorities in Iraq, a nation ruled by a tyrant we also assisted the Americans to bomb. There is scant access to those jails by organizations concerned with human rights and few facts about endeavours to process the applications for refugee status. We only gave 124 permanent protection visas to Afghanis in the year 2000. And the notion of Temporary Protection Visas that deny family reunion is sickening. And so is the scandalous waste of public money in the neo-colonial policy of using Pacific island aid recipients as detention centres.

With the horror of fascist concentration camps vivid in our memories, our democratically elected Government and Opposition condone terrible conditions for people already traumatised by tyranny we condemn. To our profound shame our Navy has even fired shots near refugee boats. In an effort to discredit these victims, Ministers allege without evidence that they have thrown children overboard. Yet it is our Government that has imprisoned over 600 children. Most Australians are ignorant of Islam. Those who equate it with terrorism nurture the arson and graffiti assaults upon mosques used by peaceful Australians in the manner expected in a liberal democracy. What kind of country have we become? Where is our soul?

We are entitled to expect rational debate from our political parties on such issues. We do not know why the processing of applications is taking so long but know that those processed are overwhelmingly found to be fleeing persecution and to be, therefore, refugees. Those fleeing Iraq fear persecution by a secular tyrant in an Islamic state. Those fleeing Afghanistan fear persecution by extremists whose fanatical interpretation of Islam is atypical of most devout Muslims.

It is the duty of Governments to protect human rights within their borders. For our Government to redraw our borders in order to avoid its duty under International Human Rights Conventions is disgusting. For a nation claiming Ned Kelly as a symbol of defiance against repressive authority we appear to have endorsed the most repressive government in our history. It is imperative that the Senate restores the surveillance by Parliament of the Executive. That is why we voted for the balance of power that prevails there. The Senate must ensure that the Government does not fetter the Human Rights Commissioner’s review into claims of violence and denial of rights of 600 children in refugee jails. It must also, however belatedly, force the Government return to the model of multilateral cooperation that greatly reduced the number of hazardous journeys by boat people during the Fraser Government. All decisions were made humanely and as quickly as possible. They were made in the spirit of Sir Robert Menzies who committed his Government to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1954. The failure of the Howard Government to adopt a similar approach will haunt Australia domestically and internationally for at least a generation. It will also become one of the bleakest chapters in our history: aptly entitled The Barren Years by Robert Manne. The Howard Government has divided Australia and shamed us in the world. We are far from being relaxed and comfortable!

Without Government leadership, we must, as ordinary Australians begin a grass roots movement to return our nation to one of tolerance. On this Human Rights Day we should commit ourselves to that goal. We must celebrate the essential equality of humankind and help educate our fellow Australians in correcting misinformation so shamefully dissembled by our Government. We are told, without evidence, that boat people include terrorists and that children are sent unaccompanied so that they may sponsor their parents afterwards. It is asserted that Muslim women breed faster than others and that we will soon be outnumbered. Yet the record reveals that all women settling in Australia soon adopt the pattern of women already here, regardless of religion. That is true of other economically prosperous nations. Our birth rate is 1.7 children per couple and in Catholic Italy it is 1.6. Australian Muslim women are following similar trends. We are told that the Fraser Government was wrong to allow Vietnamese boat people to stay and that Triad agents accompanied them. Yet facts deny that. To the extent that Triad and other drug gangs sent agents to Australia they did so on passports with visas that satisfied tests at our airports. They were not amongst those who fled Vietnam in leaky boats in which over 40% perished.

Those enlarging our xenophobia ignore other established facts. Most fleeing in precarious circumstances do not wish to leave home and many would be pleased to return if a tolerant regime were restored. That may happen in Afghanistan eventually and those who find themselves out of place here may choose to return. But our experience of refugees from vastly different and differing cultures is that, when we have accepted them warmly, they have made wonderful citizens. They wish to repay kindness, integrate well, enlarge our culture in the process and know full well that they have nowhere else to go. In some parts of Europe and Asia several generations live under one roof. Within a few years, new arrivals follow our pattern of nuclear families as soon as they can afford to do so. Above all, having fled tyranny, they embrace all our freedoms. They believe in "a fair go." Such people have contributed greatly to this nation in the past 200 years and will do so again.

As a nation at the forefront of the campaign to reduce trade barriers, Australia has benefited greatly from the rapidly globalizing world. But is our migration only to be of highly skilled people who could be employed anywhere and owe no allegiance? In this shrinking world not even an island is an island. We cannot support the bombing of tyranny without acting with compassion for those who are its victims. The record of waves of refugees shows that those to whom a warm hand is extended more than repay our tolerance by integrating into and deepening our culture. It is a disgrace to our liberal democracy that there has been bipartisan succour to prejudice based upon skin colour and religious identification.

We are surrounded by the Indian and Pacific Oceans and need Asia far more than Asia needs us. While our trading will be global, Asia will always be at its core. For that reason alone, Australians with Asian languages and cultural insights will always be invaluable. And those with Asian heritage will be especially so. Yet, as xenophobia reached its height in election fever, Australians of Asian extraction were frightened. On this Human Rights Day we should ponder that and the undoubted contribution they have made and are making to our wellbeing and prosperity. Another intake will augment the many skills we need for our economic growth and ultimate defence. An increased population is essential for our survival and it will not be obtained by offering women incentives to stay home and have more children. We need more skilled migrants but many will think twice about moving to a xenophobic society that denies basic human rights to refugees.

It is tragic that we had to experience the One Nation episode and that the Prime Minister did not repudiate Hanson at the outset. Instead he won her supporters by fostering their fears. As anyone who has associated with migrants and refugees from all parts of the world knows, we are indeed one nation. We are united by commitments to the same principles and values. I conclude by asking what would our response have been had it been possible for Jews to escape from Hitler’s Nazi concentration camps and bribe their way to Australia on leaky boats? Would we have rejected them and sent them to Nauru? Would we have placed them in jails in the desert reminiscent of concentration camps from which they had fled? We were fighting Hitler as we are now fighting the Taliban from which others are fleeing to our shores. The parallel is real. We did take those able to flee Pol Pot. But that was during the Fraser years. That was then. But these are the Barren Years.