RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/

A hardline policy of turning away boat people at sea is having dramatic results but provoking middle-class outrage, writes Nick Cater in Sydney

THE Australian immigration department’s website posts its blunt advice to would-be settlers in 17 languages: “No way. You will not make Australia home.”

Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell, dressed in battle fatigues, stares grimly at the camera in an online video warning would-be refugees not to trust people smugglers who claim that the fortress Australia policy is a sham.

“The rules apply to everyone — families, children, unaccompanied children, educated and skilled,” he says. “There are no exceptions.”

Before Tony Abbott was elected prime minister last September, Campbell commanded Australian forces in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Now he heads Border Protection Command and is in charge of Operation Sovereign Borders, a mission to prevent “illegal maritime arrivals” stepping foot on his country’s soil.

Campbell’s area of operation encompasses the entire Indian Ocean, where two asylum seeker boats were intercepted in June near the Cocos Islands, halfway between Sri Lanka and the Australian mainland.

Last Sunday 41 asylum seekers from one vessel were transferred into Sri Lankan custody from an Australian border protection vessel off the port of Batticaloa.

Plans to organise a similar transfer for 153 asylum seekers on the second boat have been temporarily halted by an injunction from the High Court in Canberra.

Lawyers hired by activists have mounted a challenge, claiming Australia is breaching its obligations under the United Nations refugee convention.

If the High Court agrees, the asylum seekers are likely to be transferred to the Pacific island of Manus, hundreds of miles north of the Australian mainland, where they would be detained by the Papua New Guinea government.

Australia, uniquely among developed nations, refuses to accept applications for asylum lodged on its soil from people who arrive by boat.

The governing Liberal- National coalition has outsourced its UN safe haven obligations to Papua New Guinea and the Pacific island nation of Nauru. It insists that even those who can prove they are genuine refugees will never be resettled in Australia.

Abbott was elected on an unambiguous promise to “stop the boats”. The tough policies follow the arrival of more than 50,000 asylum seekers by sea under the previous Labor government and deaths of an estimated 1,100 others.

Australia issues stark warnings to would-be asylum seekers

Almost all the journeys have been organised by sophisticated people smuggling syndicates, operating principally from Indonesia, which charge passengers about £6,000 for the passage.

Abbott took an uncompromising stance last week in response to unsubstantiated reports that some women in immigration detention had been driven to suicide, saying: “I don’t believe any thinking Australian would want us to capitulate to moral blackmail.”

The results of the government’s policy of deploying the navy to turn back boats at sea, combined with offshore processing, has exceeded the expectations of many, including some of the prime minister’s closest supporters.

Last year vessels carrying asylum seekers were arriving at a rate of five or six a week. So far this year there have been no arrivals, tempting the government into a cautious declaration of victory.

Seven out of 10 Australians support the turn-back strategy, according to a poll organised last month by the Lowy Institute think tank. Six out of ten agree that asylum seekers should be processed offshore. Yet the issue rivals climate change as a dinner party-destroying conversation topic in Australia.

A passionate minority — predominantly professional, educated and middle class — are expressing moral outrage at what they see as a cause of national shame.

Among them is the former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser, now a strong critic of his former party. He tweeted that the return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka was “redolent off [sic] handing Jews to Nazis in 1930s”.

Australia issues stark warnings to would-be asylum seekers

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees last week issued an extraordinary statement saying it viewed reports of Australia’s interception of boats at sea “with profound concern”.

“UNHCR’s position is that requests for international protection should be considered within the territory of the intercepting state, consistent with fundamental refugee protection principles,” it said.

Amanda Vanstone, a former Liberal immigration minister, said the majority of refugees travelled through other safe countries, principally Malaysia and Indonesia. “I personally think they should amend the refugee convention to make it crystal clear that it’s not an invitation to shop around for your favourite country,” she told The Sunday Times.

“Others get on their high horse and criticise, but what most Europeans don’t understand is that Australia is in the top three countries for permanent resettlement of refugees.”

An editorial in The New York Times last week accused Australians of “xenophobia”, but claims of a return to the discredited white Australia policy is belied by the facts.

About 200,000 settlers will be accepted under the official migration programme this year. The UK has fallen to third place in the rankings of source countries, behind India and China.

While Australia’s multi-ethnic conversion has been largely successful, the maxim of the former prime minister John Howard — “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” — holds good.

The true status of the asylum seekers is also far from certain. Of 41 who were escorted back to Sri Lanka last weekend, 37 were from the majority Sinhalese community. Even some asylum seeker advocates concede that a significant number of those who arrive are economic refugees.

The opportunity for Abbott to remind Australians of his tough stance on border security comes as he struggles to win support for an unpopular budget. Polls suggest he would lose office if a general election were held today. In the latest Newspoll, 62% of voters said they were dissatisfied with his performance.

Martin O’Shannessy, the head of Newspoll, said he doubted that border security would be “a game changer”.

“Voters consistently prefer the coalition’s tough approach but it is not a top order issue,” he said. “When people are asked which issues are most important to them, it ranks well below the management of the economy.”