Asylum seekers have become, in parallel with terrorism and consequent on it, the first major crisis of the 21st century. Terrorism and asylum seeking have been created by the failure of many governments to work for the freedom and welfare of their citizens.  Autocratic rulers enrich and glorify themselves by stealing their country’s resources, their peoples’ labour and even aid, while attacking their own citizens and neighbours. They batten on to the trade in drugs and people.

At least a hundred million people seek to escape from repressive, poverty-creating governments.  They range from economic refugees looking for a decent standard of living to political refugees desperate for their lives.  Some 30 million migrants are estimated to cross borders every year.  Developed countries are trying to make places for asylum seekers, with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees pinpointing political refugees in greatest danger, so that asylum is not by wealth alone.  But with over 900,000 registered asylum seekers, the UN and developed countries are swamped.

In Indonesia, the criminals who today smuggle people got their start in ripping out the country’s forests with the connivance of the Suharto government with which some Australians prided themselves on having excellent relations! These criminals moved on to drugs, and then, encouraged by Australia’s ‘soft touch’ policies, to smuggling people.  At some $50 million a year this has not been a bad source of income. At least two boatloads disappeared into the deep sea during 2000-2001.  Only some pirates were witnesses lest the people pipeline shrink.

Most Australians are compassionate.  We are moved by people fleeing terror and poverty.  But there is no way that we, and other developed countries, can accommodate all those seeking asylum without damaging our societies.  If immigration is not controlled, millions will seek asylum. To abuse those of us who are trying to develop policies that will deal compassionately, but rationally, with a desperate world-wide situation as racist, is a poisonous libel.

The Howard Government’s attempt to stop the criminal smugglers has had some success.  The lucrative cargoes have abated.  Potential asylum seekers have been warned.
Illegals in Indonesia have become a nuisance.  Together with terrorist infiltration into Sulawesi (and the Philippines and Malaysia), it has become clear that the Indonesian Government cannot now give people smugglers the support that Suharto gave criminals.

In Australia an immigration debate has been revived.  The first step is to improve refugee processing, so that the agreed 12,000 target is filled early in the year.  The bureaucrats responsible will be in trouble if this is not done.  This, too, will send the message that back-door entry is closing.  The second step is to ask whether we can take more refugees.
The answer cannot be isolated from overall immigration and population policy.  Several new issues are emerging.

Population aging and a low national birthrate suggest that an upward revision of total immigration should be considered.

Australia in the 2000s is less generous toward refugees (intake as a proportion of population) than it was in the 1930s.  Australia was then a narrowly Anglo-Celtic society.  White Australia was widely accepted.  But the pioneering bush and struggletown traditions of helping neighbours through drought, flood and unemployment, and the mateship of shearing camps and coal mines, were strongly ingrained.  These Australian traditions served to integrate the post-World War II refugees and immigrants into Australian society.  Multiculturalism, in contrast, has evolved as a culture of difference, of looking back to old conflicts rather than forward to Australia’s future.  Funds are spent on interpretation services rather than on teaching English.   Multiculturalism has destroyed some of the culture that made Australians generous toward newcomers.

In the 1930s refugees from fascism, mostly though not solely Jewish, were put in a camp at Tatura in the Wimmera, together with fascist German internees. The Australian guards - no Mary Poppins nannies - had no idea why the fascists were bashing the others.  The anti-fascists had to defend themselves without creating problems for their Australian hosts.  The camp was primitive and fascism seemed victorious worldwide so that the refugees suffered unimaginable psychological traumas.  But because they knew what they were fleeing from, they organised for the few who knew some English to teach the others, held Australian history classes and readFor the Term of His Natural Life and Joe Wilson and his Mates. They created a civil society.

Terrorism has made it essential to examine potential newcomers carefully.  At least six terrorist organisations that murder innocent civilians are already collecting funds in Australia and recruiting.  With the clearing out of Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, some terrorists will want to hide in ethnic communities in Australia.  Some of those waiting for clearance in detention centers – and their supporters – have already shocked many Australians.  Persecution of religious minorities is unacceptable.  Arson and trashing buildings are criminal acts for which there is no psychological excuse.  Asylum seekers’ support groups have a major task in encouraging civil behavior instead of lawlessness.

Multiculturalism has failed the first test it has faced in Australia.  A similar reaction is evident in other countries, notably the United Kingdom.  We had better have a serious look at multiculturalism and immigration before we become so narrow and insular a society that we reduce, rather than increase, immigration places.


About the Author:
Emeritus Professor Helen Hughes served on The Fitzgerald Committee on Immigration, and is a Senior Fellow at The Centre for Independent Studies.