Right now would be a good time.
You can’t trust Labor/Greens with Border Security.UN to continue fight against Australia’s border policies
Turning back asylum boats at sea puts lives at risk, and the UNHCR will continue to lobby to end the practice and for Canberra to lift its restrictions on refugee resettlements out of Indonesia, regardless of who wins the election.
The UN refugee agency’s Indonesia chief, Thomas Vargas, told The Australian that turn-back policies such as those used by Australia’s Border Force to prevent boatloads of asylum-seekers reaching Australia “just don’t work”.
“If you turn someone back or push them away, you risk pushing them into harm’s way — and that’s what is so terrible about these types of policies — rather than rescuing them, bringing them to safety and then figuring out how best they can be helped,” Mr Vargas said.
“One country might say ‘Yes, it’s working for us’, but that leaves other countries to deal with the situation and inevitably we are all in this together.”
JACQUELIN MAGNAY
Indonesians involved in the people-smuggling trade have told The Australian they are closely monitoring federal election campaigning and say they are ready to kickstart their trade if a new government weakens the nation’s tough border policies. Indonesian authorities have said they, too, are following the debate and bracing for a possible change in policy that could lead to a resumption of boats.
The Weekend Australian reported on Saturday that a boat carrying up to 200 asylum-seekers had left India this month and could be headed for New Zealand but may plan stops in Indonesia or Malaysia.
Refugee resettlements out of Indonesia have slowed dramatically in recent years as traditional resettlement countries such as Australia have increased restrictions on intakes and shifted their priorities to allow more refugees from war-torn Syria. The US has slashed its intake to a quarter of its former annual resettlement quota.
Last year just 509 of an estimated 14,000 refugees were resettled out of Indonesia, compared with 763 in 2017, and 1271 in 2016, and the refugee population has been told to expect possible waits of a decade or more.
The message prompted 455 refugees to leave Indonesia and return to their home countries last year, many of those to Afghanistan where the Taliban now holds more ground than at any time since before 2001 and civilian casualties are at a record high.
People-smugglers in Indonesia are counting on the rise in violence in Afghanistan, combined with the resettlement slowdown, to convince more refugees to chance their luck with a possible new Australian government.
Chairul Anwar, one of Indonesia’s most senior bureaucrats dealing with refugees and people-smuggling, told The Australian boat turnbacks had so far been effective in ending the people-smuggling trade out of Indonesia.
“But if the resettlement process is unclear, the queue is long, and refugees have to wait years without any certainty, then they will become desperate,” Brigadier General Anwar said, adding it would be “good news” if Australia was willing to take more refugees, especially out of Indonesia. “People-smuggling and irregular migration depends very largely on the stability of their original countries. The problem is we haven’t seen these countries regaining stability. The Rohingyas, the Afghans, they will continue to seek asylum as long as there is not stability in their countries.”
The UNHCR has been critical of Australia’s ban on accepting refugees who arrived in Indonesia after July 2014 and of its boat turn-back policy, which it says endangers lives and flouts international law-of-the-sea conventions.
Mr Vargas told The Australian the UNHCR position was that “countries work together to rescue any boats in distress” and to ensure anyone in distress made it safely to the nearest port of entry.
“One way or another, governments have to find ways to work together to make sure those two things can happen and that not any one government is saddled with finding the solution and no one else is helping,’’ he said.
“If you have a situation where people are not safe in their own country, and their lives are at risk if they do not leave, you can try to deter them all you want but there will be people that will risk their lives to try and save their lives and those of their families.
“So unless these wars stop, a pushback policy is ultimately not going to work.
“As long as there are push factors the boats will continue.” Australian authorities say turning back asylum boats saves lives by robbing the people-smuggling industry of its main incentive, and that the policy has brought the asylum boat trade to an effective halt.
With a May federal election looming, political sparring between the Morrison government and the opposition has escalated in recent weeks over which party has the toughest and most effective immigration policies. Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has vowed to continue offshore processing of asylum-seekers and boat turnbacks if Labor is elected to government.
He has also promised an additional $500 million over five years for the UNHCR, and to accept more refugees by increasing the Community Sponsored Refugee Scheme from 1000 places to 5000.
Additional reporting: Nivell Rayda
AMANDA HODGESOUTH EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT
Amanda Hodge is The Australian’s South East Asia correspondent. Based in Jakarta, she has covered war, refugees, terror attacks, natural disasters and social and political upheaval from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka... Read more
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