A Christmas Island Present? A Humanitarian Disaster

A Christmas Island Present? A Humanitarian Disaster

The Refugee Council of New Zealand condemns the hard-line asylum policies of the present government of Australia which have resulted in the latest tragedy off the coast of Christmas Island.

The arrival of asylum seekers by boat in Australia has been a most divisive political issue for Australia, despite the fact that they represent less than 2% of annual immigration. Australia has never been at any risk of losing control of its borders, but that is not how it has been played out by some alarmist politician exploiting the issue.

It is appalling that hapless and desperate asylum seekers are being used by politicians in attempts to win over voters in marginal constituencies. The opposition conservative party went to the August election with the slogan "stop the boats". The Prime Minister Julia Gillard this year proposed a regional refugee processing centre in East Timor, which has been widely derided as expedient bad policy on the run.

With 5,500 people being held in immigration detention in Australia, the old hard line policies are failing: it is time for reflection and rethinking. New Zealand should have absolutely nothing to do with the proposed regional processing centre.

Christmas Island itself houses nearly 2,800 detainees, mainly Afghans and Sri Lankans. Other nationalities include Iranians, Iraqis and Burmese. The island is attractive to people smugglers s from Indonesia because of its proximity, but landing there is no guarantee of a successful refugee claim.

The conditions these asylum seekers are being detained in are a bad environment, and the level of suicides, self-harm, serious incidents, and damaging effects on women and children have been well-documented by Australian and international researchers.

The evidence is well-established that the involuntary containment of human beings seriously damages those affected, but it also equally brutalises the people and the societies carrying it out.

The Refugee Council of New Zealand would like to think that in the unlikely event that a boat with asylum seekers ever made its way to New Zealand territorial waters, our Government would take a very different and humanitarian approach to accommodating those people. This was certainly shown historically in the way we Kiwis embraced the people from the Tampa.

RCNZ welcomes the opportunity to engage with the New Zealand government on a well-conceived contingency plan to manage such an event in a way that is based on human rights and the humanitarian principles this country was founded upon.

ENDS

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