18 February 2019

Canberra: The Welcoming City

| John Hargreaves
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Refugees seeking medical attention can easily be accommodated in Canberra. File photo.

Jon Stanhope, when Chief Minister of the ACT, declared Canberra a welcome city for refugees. He did this because he could read the compassion of our people and knew that we had many refugees successfully settled here.

I was Minister for Housing and also Minister for Multicultural Affairs at the time. I remember introducing a temporary housing solution to the incoming refugees from North Africa, using stock destined to be pulled down but still in reasonable condition.

It is against this background that I was encouraged to hear the passage of the “Medevac” Bill allowing sick refugees on Manus and Nauru to come to Australia for medical treatment.

A couple of comments are warranted.

There are only about 300 of the 1000 people on those islands who would qualify. They have already been processed from the status of asylum seekers to refugees, and really are entitled under international convention to be patriated to Australia. I would love to see them come here.

The policy of the Australian government has caused the illness of these people and you would think that we have an obligation to address that. A compensation case in an international court is not a ridiculous idea.

But in cogitating the bill and its success I was struck by an inconsistency. I speak of the case of Hakeem al-Araibi and its resolution compared with the nameless, internationally unknown inmates in those camps.

Hakeem fled Bahrain, a middle eastern emirate, travelled through two countries, Iran and Malaysia and came to Australia in 2014, seeking refugee status as an asylum seeker. He was granted refugee status in 2017. Note that he was on Australian soil when he sought refugee status and no-one kicked up a fuss.

The people on Manus and Nauru came from middle eastern countries, through a couple of other countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, as asylum seekers and sought refugee status. They were sent to detention camps on Manus Island, Nauru and Christmas Island. During the past 5 years, they have been processed as genuine refugees and not opportunistic terrorists. Yet they are still prevented from coming here.

The Australian Government appealed to the Thai government to release Hakeem even though he is not an Australian citizen yet (hopefully this will be achieved soon) and yet they deny the detention camp internees the same right. Even going to the length of denying them the opportunity of going to NZ.

Back to Canberra.

We could accommodate these 300 medical evacuees easily. The issues are of housing and medical treatments.

We may not have the medical expertise in the numbers needed. But the same must surely be said of Christmas Island, which is a disgusting option designed by this federal Government as an option abhorrent to the Australian public which may say we should not proceed. I don’t think so. It is still appalling.

But, medical services can be contracted out and paid for by the federal government. Indeed, if the 300 were given recognised refugee status and assimilated into the Canberra community, there would be no cost to the federal government.

We have housing stock which is destined for demolition in the suburbs. I talk not of multi-storied apartments but free standing houses. The demolition takes months to happen, needing planning approval, demolition approval and contract determination. It doesn’t happen under six months.

These houses can be, and used to be, given to those refugees coming here and getting on their feet. They don’t jump the public housing queue but are given a temporary leg up.

Now is the time to call for the refugees on Manus and Nauru to come here, to our welcoming city and welcoming community.

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Phill kirkham5:05 pm 21 Feb 19

I have a solution. A new system can be developed (outsourced to a private contractor of course), for all the people who support the assimilation of refugees. They can register as a sponsor for a refugee. The sponsor will be fully liable for the housing and financial support of the refugee. The sponsor must not and cannot seek any government financial support whatsoever, including any tax offsets. The sponsor will be required to take out private health insurance on behalf of the refugee. The refugee will not be able to seek any form of government pension or other financial support, as the sponsor’s household income and assets will be taken into account. Education and work placement would have to be organised by the sponsor and the sponsor will take full responsibility for any and all issues that may arise. Finally, the sponsor will be fully liable as the guarantor for the refugee, both financially and for the assimilation of the refugee into our laws, customs and way of life. This seems like a win-win-win for the supporters, opponents and the refugees.

It is very easy to pull wool over the eyes of the authorities. There’s at least one “Iranian refugee” here in Canberra who is in fact Azerbaijani. As are many of his “Iranian refugee” friends. This fellow’s family ALL live in Azerbaijan and there’s no indication they took refuge there from Iran any time in the last 40 years. We are being played for fools. Meanwhile people are stuck in refugee camps in Africa, places that are rightfully theirs taken by people like my friend’s friend.

“They have already been processed from the status of asylum seekers to refugees, and really are entitled under international convention to be patriated to Australia. I would love to see them come here.”

This is incorrect, they are not entitled to patriation to Australia under international convention and in fact permanent resettlement is not required at all under the convention, just temporary protection until the risk of persecution is removed. That has been provided.

“Indeed, if the 300 were given recognised refugee status and assimilated into the Canberra community, there would be no cost to the federal government.”

Except for the fact that most refugees remain unemployed for long periods after arrival due to understandable assimilation issues and rely heavily on welfare and other social services. Is the author suggesting that we take over these federal functions and funding for these hypothetical arrivals?

“Hakeem fled Bahrain, a middle eastern emirate, travelled through two countries, Iran and Malaysia and came to Australia in 2014, seeking refugee status as an asylum seeker. He was granted refugee status in 2017. Note that he was on Australian soil when he sought refugee status and no-one kicked up a fuss.”

Because it’s impossible to stop people with valid visas from claiming protection rights?

And due to the necessary vetting of providing visas, successful claims for protection are low and unlikely to significantly affect our ability to draw from overseas camps to fill our humanitarian quotas.

Boat arrivals, however, would completely swamp the system almost instantly if we allowed them to stay.

50000 arrivals under the previous ALP government’s failed policy, with exponential growth. 25000 came in the last twelve months of the policy.

Now is not the time to repeat the mistakes of 10 years ago and reopen the borders to boat arrivals.

Sorry John, but somebody who has travelled through 2 or 3 other countries to get here is a traveller and not a refugee and the anti-refoulment provisions do not apply.

I’m all for letting them stay for the duration of a visitor visa with full user-pays access to all of our support systems available to us here in Australia, but they should be ineligible to claim refugee status once they get here via whatever tiki-tour route they take.

I’m also all for a healthy and robust refugee resettlement programme, but we should be concentrating our efforts on UNHCR camps, not on queue jumpers. Queue jumping is as unAustralian as it gets. (yes, I’m looking at you, character test..)

Capital Retro3:35 pm 18 Feb 19

Ah Canberra, the virtue signalling capital of Australia.

There was a report last week that ACT treasury revenue had fallen off another $100 million, unfunded public servant pension liability is now in excess of $7 billion and today Andrew Barr announces he wants a larger and longer commitment to funding GWS which will be more millions of dollars.

We can’t afford to deliver all the services we need so it is madness to invite more people here whatever their status is.

Then again, we could harvest some more money from the trees at the arboretum.

The actual actuarial assessment of the superannua is over $8 billion, although I don’t think you could call that “unfunded” anymore as the ACT government has $4B saved for it and is putting a few hundred million away each year to meet the liability fully by the early 2030’s.

It’s being planned for and funded right now.

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