Address by Professor Mary Crock
at the launch of the Australian Bishops’
Social Justice Statement 2015–2016
For Those Who’ve Come Across the Seas:
Justice for refugees and asylum seekers
Mary MacKillop Place, North Sydney, 9 September 2015
It is my great honour and privilege to launch the 2015 – 2016 Social Justice Statement for the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.
This year marks 30 years since I first began working with refugees and asylum seekers as a lawyer; and 20 since I was appointed to my first academic position. I have maintained my interest in migrants and refugees, making the issue of vulnerability in displacement a particular focus of my research.I have written about children seeking asylum alone, some of whom have gone on to become family and friends. I acted for three children from Iran who were orphaned in the shipwreck on Christmas Island in December 2010. Together with my husband Ron McCallum I have travelled abroad to examine the situation of persons with disabilities who live as refugees in displacement. We finished in 2014 with a case study of Syrian refugees living in the border areas in Jordan and Turkey. The research brought me face to face with the human misery of the conflict that finally broke through the veil of global indifference this week when pictures of little Aylan Kurdi’s lifeless body being lifted from the sea went ‘viral’ all around the world.
In spite of the many thousands of words written and spoken about ‘refugees’ and ‘boat people’ in this country, my feeling is that public understanding of the issues continues to be less than perfect. As Christians and as Catholics, what are we to make of Australia’s response?
In Australia the discourse on refugees has become increasingly toxic. Our politicians have sought electoral gain in fomenting fear of the outsider – embodied particularly in persons of the Muslim faith – at precisely the time when the opposite is needed. As Aylan was mourned, our (Catholic) Prime Minister asserted that the world had much to learn from Australia’s example: we have stopped the boats and so stopped the drownings at sea. In response to the overwhelming human tide that carried the Syrian toddler to his untimely death, the government has finally responded to the Syrian crisis with a proposal for an increase of 12,000 Syrians in our refugee intake program (taking the total beyond the 20,000 proposed by Labor in 2012). Even so, the gesture has been accompanied by damaging and divisive suggestions that preference be given to refugees on the basis of their religious affiliations rather than their human need for protection. Australia is also to contribute a further $44 million in foreign aid. This is a welcome announcement, although a small concession in light of the $1 billion cuts to foreign aid announced in this year’s budget.
In Europe this week we have seen examples of real political leadership in Germany’s President Angela Merkel. In her most recent statements she has suggested that her country can expect upwards of 800,000 asylum claims this year.[1] The ordinary Germans who have come to the railway stations to welcome the trainloads of bedraggled Syrians have shown us Christianity in action.
As the authors of this statement correctly identify, there are three running sores in Australian law and policy. The first relates to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers; the second to the way we treat persons in the community who arrived by boat without visas; and the third to the famed ‘Pacific Solution’. In a recent meeting with the shadow minister for immigration, I went so far as to suggest that our treatment of persons transferred to Manus Island and Nauru constitute crimes against humanity.
The central arguments made in the Social Justice Statement are neither novel, nor should they be controversial:
We call on our political leadership to ensure public debate is characterised by respect for the human dignity of people seeking asylum.
May we continue the tradition established in 1972 with the abolition of the White Australia Policy that Australia’s immigration policies be made without discrimination – including on grounds of race and religion.
Australia should be processing asylum seekers’ claims onshore.
The fiscal and moral costs of Manus Island and Nauru are more than our country can bear. Our policies quite literally work to dis-embody refugees, taking them out of sight and out of mind. Women, children and vulnerable persons are suffering abuses that future generations will condemn. Do we need yet another Royal Commission before the abuses are stopped?
Detention in immigration facilities should be for the shortest period possible to undertake identity, health and security checks. No child should be detained solely on the basis of their immigration status and all children are entitled to a healthy family life with the support and nurture of their parents.
Australia is a country built on immigration. Detaining children who we know cannot be returned to the countries from which they have fled can never be in our national interest
Australia should be showing leadership in the region, not just in combating people smuggling but in increasing the capacity for protection and resettlement places in South-East Asia. Globally we should be making concrete efforts to engage with source countries to provide in-country support to people who are displaced.
Hear, hear. The governments’ decision today to send bombing raids into Syria underscore the preference of the government to preference military engagement over diplomacy. This is a response that will cost far more in dollars and human lives than any humanitarian response.
There should be a substantial increase in Australia’s humanitarian intake with a flexibility to increase this number in the case of major global crises.
The UN has established mechanisms for prioritising the resettlement of the most needy. We should continue to respect these processes without imposing an arbitrary screen based on religious beliefs.
People living in the community while their asylum claims are being processed should be afforded work rights.
Again, current policies punish people who deserve our sympathy, not our vitriol. Punitive policies divide and destroy the fabric of society at precisely the point where unity and tolerance is needed. The one aspect not mentioned in the Statement is that the most sensible and Christian response to persons found to meet the definition of refugee is to grant them a new life in Australia. The device of temporary protection visas does nothing to facilitate the healing and growth that have seen so many refugees contribute to the fabric of this great country over the years.
We must ensure that no one seeking Australia’s protection, regardless of whether they are in onshore or offshore facilities, or in a third country under a bilateral resettlement agreement, is ever deported to danger.
The most lamentable feature of Australian law and policy is that we have ceased to observe even the most elementary aspects of international refugee law – the principle that refugees should never be returned to a country where they face death or persecution.
I am proud to endorse this Statement, both as a Catholic and as an Australian. In the words of the Statement authors:
We know that we are better than this. As Christians, we know that it is within us to hear the call of Jesus. As Australians we have shown ourselves willing to take the path of generosity and leadership. We can do so again.
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Address: Professor Mary Crock,9 Sept 2015
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