Does anybody know where the Gillard government plans to put 4,000 refugees when they arrive from Malaysia?
Presumably they’ll be subjected to the same ASIO security checks as are the other people already granted refugee status in Australia. Even after achieving this status, refugees continue to be held in mandatory detention until the ASIO checks are complete.
Does this mean we’ll need detention facilities for 4,000 more while their security status is established? How long will this take?
How will ASIO, already apparently already coping with a backlog, handle an influx of 4000 refugees needing security scrutiny before they are allowed to start their lives in the community?
There are already some 1000 genuine refugees being held in detention, some for up to 12 months, awaiting ASIO clearance. Chris Bowen has vowed not to compromise our security systems.
Will the Gillard government change the rules for the arrivals from Malaysia, and allow them into the community while their security checks are conducted? How would that move contribute to the discontent of all those refugees who are already detained behind the razor wire? Will she let them out? Who will care for the unaccompanied minors we send to Malaysia? Are the feminists still happy with our first female Prime Minister?
Oh, what interesting times in which we live!
Related articles
- Security checks on asylum seekers fast-tracked (theage.com.au)
- Close the border and stop this shonky Malaysia deal (thepunch.com.au)
No Place For Sheep 
Good point. Neither Immi nor ASIO can cope with the current backlog except by neglecting other areas. Example: Immi’s publicity (including the minister himself) state that it takes 6 weeks to approve a sponsored worker, in practice it takes 6 to 9 months to process. This process actually takes about One hour of an officer’s time.
Non compliance with visa conditions is rarely if ever investigated, as Immi don’t have the resources to devote to it.
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I’m sure if those four thousand could be disquised as cattle or suicidal whales they would be immediately welcomed by all politicians with tear stained faces and given prompt priority.
Isn’t it strange how in all those years we still seem to regard people with less respect than animals?
It takes at least 9 months to process a refugee behind razor wire yet stopping cruelty to the animal export, done in a jiffy.
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The real question is, how you get a change of heart, in a not intrinsically bad, but all too human and some what manipulated Australian community, short of reliable information on what such issues are about.
I sense Jennifer and other well-informed people want to metaphorically slap the childlike Australian community as selfish children, for the sake of people who are enduring suffering on a scale most Australians couldn’t contemplate.
But the residual fear has been aroused through much clumsiness and not a little malevolence and opportunism.
I remember, when a very small kid, being pushed toward the water at Manly beach by my father, instinctively recoiling and beginning to panic, until mum called out to him. I’d been happy at the water’s edge, instead I feared the beach for sometime after that.
I think much of the Australian public is like the small kid at the edge of the beach, there is some sort of instinctive fear, manipulated and exacerbated, as the community stands on the threshold of its its collective uknown.
Sadly, its the best response this community can come up with, when confronted with the realities of life for much of humanity; as Gerard and Steve would know, its not really an optimum response. But the selling of increased refugee numbers here has been so bady botched or sabotaged, that the Cronulla response is entirely predictable. In turn this antagonises the advocates, who have thoughts of foetid slums in Djakata and KL with disease, hunger and perhaps death as the only vison for a future, for displaced people.
Id like to say more., about international pol economy and the like and its relationship to human nature both organic and culturally influenced, but enuff for now.
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I think you’re right Paul, in describing the manipulations of the community’s instinctive fears by politicians without any sense of responsibility or any concern for anything and anyone other than their own careers. I sometimes feel anger against people who seem to me to be selfishly prejudiced and willfully ignorant about these things. But I know those responsible are the political leaders who continue to steer us on this unnecessary and immoral course.
I have no idea how to bring about a change of heart without leadership that is interested in doing that. I think John Faulkner spoke some timely truths in his scathing assessment of the ALP last night. Others may take courage and challenge the party’s repression and tyranny of anyone within its ranks who disagrees with Gillard’s law of the day, but I’m not holding my breath.
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