Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about asylum seeker policy. This week SACOSS launches a state election policy around the treatment of asylum seekers in our communities. A number of SACOSS members provide services to asylum seekers who are living in South Australia waiting for determination of their cases, but I can’t tell you how the SACOSS policy was developed or why state government intervention is important in relation to what is primarily a Federal issue, because that is an operational matter and I can’t comment on operational matters.
However, I can talk about other countries, and so I want to grumble about the treatment of those on a particular ship full of asylum seekers. Over 900 asylum seekers, members of a religious minority fled a brutal dictatorship that was very clearly persecuting them. The boat sailed to Cuba but was denied entry there. In sight of the United States they pleaded for entry, only to be sent a response from the State Department that said that passengers must "await their turns on the waiting list and qualify for and obtain immigration visas before they may be admissible." There are conflicting reports about whether military vessels were sent to turn the boats away – perhaps another operational matter we may never know with certainty.
The ship sailed north, but Canada also rejected the asylum seekers, and the boat went back to the region it came from. Some of the asylum seekers were settled in friendly countries from there, but 254 were murdered by the dictatorship.
The story is well-known: the year was 1939, the ship was the MS St Louis and the passengers were Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. But from the shameful treatment of those desperate people and many thousands like them, the Refugee Convention was created – and signed up to by Australia 60 years ago tomorrow (22 January 1954).
But I want to grumble because despite the Convention, the story of the St Louis has way too much resonance in contemporary Australian debate. And because the Australian Human Rights Commission reports a “significant gap” between Australia’s human rights obligations and our current treatment of asylum seekers. And because Commission’s Chair is right that “the denial of work rights to asylum seekers living in the community on bridging visas … may force individuals and families into poverty and lead to breaches of multiple human rights.”
Welcome to the lucky country.
I am Greg, and I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 21 January 2014
Greg's Grumbles can be heard on Radio Adelaide during SACOSS' Small Change program - 6pm every Tuesday night. 101.5FM or online.
Showing posts with label asylum seekers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asylum seekers. Show all posts
Monday, 20 January 2014
Sunday, 1 December 2013
17. Asylum Seekers
Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about asylum seekers. I won’t grumble about border protection and the race to see who can manage desperate people in the most inhumane way. That is beyond a simple grumble.
But while the public debate focuses on distant shores, right now there are around 4000 people in Adelaide who have come to Australia seeking asylum and who are living in our community on bridging visas or in community detention awaiting determination of their claims. However, under Federal government policy these people are prohibited from working and have to live on 89% of the already below-the-poverty line Newstart allowance. To add insult to injury, the state government seems to deem them ineligible for housing and a range of other community supports as this is seen as a Commonwealth responsibility, or because the HealthCard [which they are not eligible for] is the criteria for eligibility.
This exclusion has hugely detrimental impacts on those people’s mental health, sense of self and on their chances of finding a place in and contributing to the community (both immediately and should their application for asylum be successful). The risk is that desperate people will turn to anti-social ways to find sustenance and identity – as you would if you were living in overcrowded and temporary accommodation in a hostile environment. Or alternatively they arrive at the doors of already over-stretched charities to ask for a help – which is fine, but it is just another example of charities picking up the pieces of failed government policy.
It is time that government, both state and federal got beyond demonising asylum seekers and provided simple services to people who are really in need. And is it really too much that these people be allowed to work? They already face such daunting challenges they are unlikely to be competition for those already looking for work, and are perhaps better in award-paying work than in the informal economy. Given the current policy that no asylum seekers arriving by boat will be settled in Australia, there can be no argument that relaxing these restrictions will provide an incentive to others to come to Australia.
Such a change of policy is desperately need just to treat people in our community with some basic measure of dignity, and it can be done without any impact on our border security, our national identity or our ability to bully our nearest neighbours.
I am Greg, I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-17/
First Broadcast: 26 November 2013
But while the public debate focuses on distant shores, right now there are around 4000 people in Adelaide who have come to Australia seeking asylum and who are living in our community on bridging visas or in community detention awaiting determination of their claims. However, under Federal government policy these people are prohibited from working and have to live on 89% of the already below-the-poverty line Newstart allowance. To add insult to injury, the state government seems to deem them ineligible for housing and a range of other community supports as this is seen as a Commonwealth responsibility, or because the HealthCard [which they are not eligible for] is the criteria for eligibility.
This exclusion has hugely detrimental impacts on those people’s mental health, sense of self and on their chances of finding a place in and contributing to the community (both immediately and should their application for asylum be successful). The risk is that desperate people will turn to anti-social ways to find sustenance and identity – as you would if you were living in overcrowded and temporary accommodation in a hostile environment. Or alternatively they arrive at the doors of already over-stretched charities to ask for a help – which is fine, but it is just another example of charities picking up the pieces of failed government policy.
It is time that government, both state and federal got beyond demonising asylum seekers and provided simple services to people who are really in need. And is it really too much that these people be allowed to work? They already face such daunting challenges they are unlikely to be competition for those already looking for work, and are perhaps better in award-paying work than in the informal economy. Given the current policy that no asylum seekers arriving by boat will be settled in Australia, there can be no argument that relaxing these restrictions will provide an incentive to others to come to Australia.
Such a change of policy is desperately need just to treat people in our community with some basic measure of dignity, and it can be done without any impact on our border security, our national identity or our ability to bully our nearest neighbours.
I am Greg, I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-17/
First Broadcast: 26 November 2013
Monday, 16 September 2013
4. Transportism
Hi, I’m Greg and I want to grumble about transportism.
Transportism is a little-understood problem in our society. Just as racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and sexism is discrimination of the basis of sex, so transportism is discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of one’s mode of transport.
Transport is important because it allows us to participate fully in society. Lack of access to transport or discrimination on the basis of transport means we can’t fully participate
If you drive a car, you have to have a licence, but it does not get checked every time you get in car. But when I catch the train home from work, I have to show my ticket to get on to the platform, walk 50 metres and show the ticket again when I get on the train, and then have a guard come by 5 minutes later to check that I have a ticket. That is petty transportism.
When I combine a bike and train trip home, only to get to the station to find that I can’t get home because “buses have replaced trains”, that is transportism. And when there is just no public transport available in many regional areas, or when the city transit system is built around office commuting and barely provides a service outside of that, that is transportism as people are disadvantaged because they rely on a particular form of transport.
Every time someone in a wheelchair can’t get into a building, or has to wait way, way longer than anyone else for a taxi because there are too few access cabs, that is transportism. People are being disadvantaged because their mode of transport is a wheelchair rather than by foot.
And then there is transportism in our immigration policy. Unfortunately in our world many people are forced to flee violence, dictatorial governments, religious intolerance or persecution. If they can fly to Australia they may ask for asylum and be treated with some respect and be offered support and protection. But if they arrive by boat, they will get shipped off to a tropical prison never to return to Australia. Their trauma, their claim for asylum and their need for protection may be equally as valid as someone arriving by plane, but different rules apply simply because they arrive by boat. They suffer discrimination and vilification and are denied equal protection under the law simply because of their mode of transport. That is transportism. I mean, really, what else could it be?
I am Greg, and I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-4/
First Broadcast: 27 August 2013
Transportism is a little-understood problem in our society. Just as racism is discrimination on the basis of race, and sexism is discrimination of the basis of sex, so transportism is discrimination and disadvantage on the basis of one’s mode of transport.
Transport is important because it allows us to participate fully in society. Lack of access to transport or discrimination on the basis of transport means we can’t fully participate
If you drive a car, you have to have a licence, but it does not get checked every time you get in car. But when I catch the train home from work, I have to show my ticket to get on to the platform, walk 50 metres and show the ticket again when I get on the train, and then have a guard come by 5 minutes later to check that I have a ticket. That is petty transportism.
When I combine a bike and train trip home, only to get to the station to find that I can’t get home because “buses have replaced trains”, that is transportism. And when there is just no public transport available in many regional areas, or when the city transit system is built around office commuting and barely provides a service outside of that, that is transportism as people are disadvantaged because they rely on a particular form of transport.
Every time someone in a wheelchair can’t get into a building, or has to wait way, way longer than anyone else for a taxi because there are too few access cabs, that is transportism. People are being disadvantaged because their mode of transport is a wheelchair rather than by foot.
And then there is transportism in our immigration policy. Unfortunately in our world many people are forced to flee violence, dictatorial governments, religious intolerance or persecution. If they can fly to Australia they may ask for asylum and be treated with some respect and be offered support and protection. But if they arrive by boat, they will get shipped off to a tropical prison never to return to Australia. Their trauma, their claim for asylum and their need for protection may be equally as valid as someone arriving by plane, but different rules apply simply because they arrive by boat. They suffer discrimination and vilification and are denied equal protection under the law simply because of their mode of transport. That is transportism. I mean, really, what else could it be?
I am Greg, and I am grumbling.
This Grumble can be heard or downloaded at https://radio.adelaide.edu.au/gregs-grumbles-4/
First Broadcast: 27 August 2013
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