It was George Orwell who said that totalitarian States do whatever they can to control their people’s thoughts and emotions as a more effective way of controlling their actions.
Australian democracy is a far cry from Orwell’s totalitarianism, however there are micro examples of that type of control used during critical and controversial moments and issues.
Fear, ignorance and doubt are key ingredients of these processes that are especially effective during uncertainties.
The rescue of 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers by the Customs ship Oceanic Viking from their sinking boat last October, and their four-week refusal to disembark in Indonesia until they were guaranteed of being processed as refugees, re-ignited the border security fears.
The incident touched a raw a nerve in Australia, evoking the mentality of fortress Australia and the xenophobia and racism that had characterized the Howard years.
The real surprise was the readiness by even the more moderate Liberal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to clasp the tool of fear and loathing for political advantage.
Unfortunately, the Federal Labor Government appeared to have been caught unaware and at the start tried to match hard line approach as Turnbull tried to make of the issue a cause celebre.
Thankfully moderation prevailed and the issue was steered back into calmer waters with a resolution that promised the Sri Lankans that they would be processed within a specified time.
Treatment of asylum seekers is a touchstone for the way a society treats minorities, outsiders, and dissidents. It should not be an ideological dispute.
Australia’s record has not been exemplary but there have been commendable responses to refugees and people fleeing trouble.
The Vietnamese boat people were not seen as marauding invaders and Australia responded sympathetically to Chileans fleeing the Pinochet dictatorship after the US backed coup d’état of September 11, 1973 that ended Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity Government, and his life.
The former case was under a Conservative Australian Government and the latter during the early stages of the Whitlam Labor Government.Leadership in those cases was critical as was Prime Minister Bob Hawke’s response to the plight of the Chinese students who took a stand in Tienanmen Square.
It would be fair to argue that the Australian people were no less racist or sensitive to fears of being overrun by outsiders and that leadership was the real point of difference.
Today’s leadership has given way to emotion with little opportunity for the public to have confidence in a rational and reasoned assessment of the issues.
It is not common knowledge that the undocumented arrivals by boat are a minority compared to the undocumented arrivals by plane, with both of them most often being found to be genuine refugees.
It is also the case that refugees constitute a tiny proportion of the total immigration intake.
United Nation figures of June 2009 show that the world’s displaced populations number 42 million. These are mothers, fathers and children who are forcibly uprooted from their homes.
According to the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees more than 11 million of those displaced are refugees living outside their countries.
Clearly the problem is of biblical proportions and the humanitarian need dwarfs refugee arrivals to Australia.
Australia is amply protected from the kind of refugee waves that visit European or North American shores by its island status and the fact that there is low level ocean traffic.
Australia’s security depends on building world peace and restoring international law in order to develop cooperative and fair economic relations that allow people to live decently in their own lands within their own cultures.
Instead of compassion the new Abbott Opposition is strengthening the hard line, even resurrecting Philip Ruddock as a spokesperson, appealing once again to the fears of the Howard years.
Australians have shown understanding and sensitivity towards refugees when their political leadership has taken a realistic and reasoned role. We must maintain the pressure on the Labour government exercise its leadership in this positive tradition.
A greater concern than boat refugees are corporate pressures for temporary skilled guest workers without full labour rightsThis short term policy deprives many developing countries of skilled workers while allowing continued underinvestment in training to develop a skilled workforce.There are currently about half a million temporary migrant workers in Australia without citizenship rights and the practice in effect lets employers decide who comes to the country and under what circumstances.
Unions have been campaigning to raise the standards of workers on 457 visas, who can be paid up to $10,000 less than their Australian counterpart, to end their exploitationThis is an issue about equity, and unions are demanding the implementation of the Deegan Inquiry to give temporary workers rights so that they are not dependent on employer sponsorship and the power of patronage this affords them.
It would also give temporary workers access to unions and draw them into the mainstream of Australia’s labour force and the community.
Source: Australian Options, Issue 59, Summer 2009/10, pp. 1-2.