Worth a read...
We missed the immigration boat once, so now we must be nimble by: Tony Burke
From: The Australian
July 06, 2013 12:00AM
I SUSPECT there's not a single person in Australia who can walk down the main streets of Campsie or Lakemba and read every sign on the shopfronts.
The area where I've always lived is the heart of multiculturalism in Australia.
They are communities that work brilliantly in Sydney, made up of people from different cultures where a similar mix has often not worked in other parts of the world.
People often presume in a community like mine that the attitudes towards immigration will be significantly different to those in other parts of Australia.
Nothing could be further from truth. There are many millions of movements in and out of Australia each year through the immigration system. Overwhelmingly, people work within the rules and abide by those rules appropriately.
The frustration often expressed about the actions of people-smugglers in areas in Australia with very little diversity is not much different to what you have in a community of great diversity.
It's true there are many people who are now strong members of my local community who arrived on boats. Some are of Vietnamese background and some have arrived more recently.
But, without exception, the responses I receive are about there being a clear preference for the system to work as it is meant to work. No one has any sympathy for processes that create an incentive for people to risk their lives on the high seas.
That's why - since becoming Immigration Minister this week - I thought it was essential to be completely upfront about what Labor got right and wrong and what the Coalition has got right and wrong in this area of policy.
This is a policy issue that needs to be dealt with professionally and sensibly. That means you can't start a conversation with the political one-liners; it has to start with an honest appraisal.
Despite the claims from the opposition, the softening of John Howard's policies in 2001 began not with Labor but with Howard's government.
The reforms largely credited to Petro Georgiou led to the beginning of the softening of immigration rules and occurred with the support of the Labor Party.
A similar process continued when we came to government and it occurred largely with the support of the Liberal Party.
In 2009 the international situation changed markedly. More people started moving around the world, in particular from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking a new life in other countries.
It was at that point Australia needed to adjust its immigration settings. We didn't and we should have. I was a member of the cabinet and I own that decision as much as anyone else.
Some months later, with Chris Bowen as immigration minister, we put forward an appropriate new response that would have dealt with the challenge that was facing us right then. This was the Malaysia agreement.
I have absolutely no doubt that had that agreement gained bipartisan support from the Coalition, similar to the bipartisan support we had offered Howard with the 2001 reforms, we would not be seeing the challenges in the Indian Ocean that we facing right now.
At that point, the Liberal Party made a decision that was clearly against Australia's national interest. The outcome is plain for all to see and should result in the Liberal Party giving as honest an appraisal of its behaviour as I've given of our failure to act in 2009.
When the debate gets beyond the slogans, it's clear that you can be a strong supporter, as I am, of multicultural Australia and still want to make sure that our immigration system is orderly and the rules are being adhered to.
Perhaps the greatest frustration in an electorate such as mine is when people who do not live in an area of such diversity try to claim that attempts to challenge people-smuggling operations are somehow disrespectful to people from diverse backgrounds.
I'll never forget one day when my electorate office had about 15 people sitting in my conference room in a large circle.
All had received mobile phone calls from relatives at the time a boat was boarded in Indonesia. It was then many weeks later and they had not heard from their relatives again. Australia had no knowledge of what happened to these people and to this day we still don't know.
The cost is real; the loss is real. When we didn't act as quickly as we might have in 2009, we missed an opportunity.
When the Liberal Party teamed up with the Greens to oppose the Malaysia agreement they missed a similar opportunity. The gravity of the loss can be understood only when you sit face-to-face with the relatives of those who will never be seen again.
This policy area is hard. It deserves to be handled by someone who is prepared to be professional, responsible and firm. It also deserves a government willing to constantly adapt in order to anticipate and match the next actions that people-smugglers will engage in.
People-smuggling operators are constantly varying their actions to find new loopholes in the law. In the same way, Australia needs to be nimble and adapt its policy constantly. We've learned that we can't freeze our policy settings in time.
Similarly, it would be grossly naive to simply photocopy the policy settings of the Howard government from 2001 and think they would work in a modern context.
As long as politics and slogans dominate the debate, Australia is at a disadvantage. The modern Australia that I love is the multicultural Australia that has always been my home; it deserves nothing less than a sensible debate based on facts.
We owe it to the strength of a multicultural nation and we owe it to the family members who otherwise face tragedy.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/we-missed-the-immigration-boat-once-so-now-we-must-be-nimble/story-e6frg6zo-1226675059127
