Axis of Hope: papers

Carman Lawrence: Labour and the War on Iraq

Carmen Lawrence is the federal member for Freemantle, Western Aust

Thank you very much indeed and I think it's a really superb context in which to talk about the question of the attitudes that we have and the behaviour we've exhibited toward asylum speakers. And I have to add, it's not just the government who's deserving of criticism on some of these occasions. I want to talk a bit about some of the ideas and feelings, if you like, that seem to underpin the way we behave as a community when we're dealing with these issues, and they could as well apply to our relationships with our neighbours, our treatment of indigenous people as well as our behaviour toward asylum seekers.

Paul Keating pointed out recently - and I am a fan of Keating's on some of these questions - that we've moved from being on the brink of creating a tolerant, creative society in which xenophobia was on the wane, to one in which tolerance looks fragile and xenophobia more robust. I think that's an accurate observation. We've had a government that's been looking inward and backward. Closing borders and keeping people out is in many ways the theme for the Howard years and has extended really beyond the asylum seeker issue. The emphasis in a lot of the discourse, the public discourse and debate, is about exclusion rather than inclusion - who can we keep out, what ideas can we keep at bay? It's about fear rather than hope, about hate rather than love. Asylum seekers, of course, are an obvious candidate for all of these sentiments, they're easily portrayed as a threat. A threat to our security. As if a whole lot of people in a leaky boat could threaten our national security.

Nonetheless, Australians have a long standing fear of being overwhelmed by invaders, by outsiders and it probably stems from our bad conscience about having done that to the indigenous people of this country in the first place. And it's pretty easy in our community to spark fears of invasion anxiety, as Anthony Burke calls it. The politics of fear, or the exploitation of fear, has to be said, I think, is sadly the stock in trade of a lot of politicians. It can be used to justify restrictions on civil liberties, as it can be used to detained asylum seekers, to justify the detention of asylum seekers. We're told as a community that it's us or them, metaphorically. We've got to keep them out, otherwise our standard of living will decline, our security will be at threat. There'll be so many of them that they will overwhelm us, despite all the evidence to the contrary. And in a way it's part of this kind of bipolar universe we've been invited to inhabit by the United States, as well. You're either with us or you're against us, it's the insider, outsider image all over again.

I think it's important for us as a community and as policy makers and as activists to recognise that the cultivation of such fear is functional. It's meant to achieve certain outcomes. It's needed to justify some policies and to distract, of course, from policy failures. And we've seen this, I think, climax in the fridge magnet episode. Fear, in my view, always serves the elites, properly identified, rather than the ones that [Christopher] Pearson and the other members of the current chattering classes would have us believe are elites. But it serves elites, the privileged. But it can then identify the dangers from which they must protect us. Whether it's witches, I'm going back to 12th and 13th century, Papist, Jewish financiers, communists or the current lot, illegals, or, you know, Saddam Hussein probably fits in that category as well. Fear sells and it gets people elected so they keep doing it. Fear, I think importantly, also sews mistrust in the population at large, it reduces people's desire and ability to come together for constructive social change. How can we work together if we don't trust one another? We need to trust the experts, then, rather than our own judgements. Become less involved in political life. People feel overwhelmed and withdraw. The population, of course, is therefore best controlled when it's afraid. Controlled and diverted.

The last election, of course, was dominated more than any other by this fear and xenophobia I mentioned, fear of strangers and the rejection of others. And while similar prejudices clearly have attached to other waves of migrants - just asked those people who came here - and still attach to the indigenous Australians in many cases, the difference this time was that fear and the prejudice was officially sanctioned. Indeed, it was encouraged. And this, I think, raises very significant questions for public policy and for educators. How would we react to racially based anger and hostility. Particularly critical at a time when there are tens of millions of men, women and children outside their country of origin, who are refugees, and there's likely to be another stream of them if the United States gets it way and bombs Iraq. There's no continent or region of the world that's unaffected by the flow of people seeking refuge for economic reasons sometimes, because of civil conflicts or as a result of war and persecution. And it's really only in the last case that they're defined under the UN Convention as refugees who can seek asylum. It's a very narrow definition, in fact. And such people are already very vulnerable because their rights are routinely violated as they seek asylum. They often end up in camps, women in particular may be the subject of further abuse, having already fled such abuse, they face discrimination, further detention and xenophobic hostility. Australia isn't alone in that. Indeed, the UN Commission on Human Rights has reported an upsurge in intolerance toward refugees, which we've seen in all parts of the world, including places where we might least expect it. And in many cases, such expressions of hostility and negative stereotyping are made to serve a political purpose, as we saw at the last election. And, as I say, fear succeeds. It sells and it's successful. The dark fears of citizens are easily exploited by the unscrupulous. And in my view, we're operating at the moment in a moral vacuum when our political leaders were as one, for instance, in refusing to allow a refugee holding a temporary protection visa to leave and re-enter Australia when his wife was one of those victims of the SIEVX drowning. And the same family at the moment is suffering because the husband's temporary protection visa is about to run out and their future is uncertain. We all remember the pictures of that family, three daughters who drowned, on the front pages of our newspapers. So that's one of the problems we face in this community at the moment. And I'm applying the problems because I do instead to say something about what I hope are the remedies.

The cultivation of fear, the first problem. The second is, the withdrawal from international cooperation, and we've touched on this already. The current government has shown a very conspicuous hostility to the United Nations and its various vehicles and refuses, apparently, to see the value of international instruments. Except, just at the moment, when it's convenient to argue that we need a UN sanction for the use of force. But if you go back a little while, they were very hostile to the scrutiny by the United Nations of the treatment of indigenous Australians. That was the first major departure. And they reject any criticism of asylum seeker policy, especially of mandatory detention, although it is in violation of all the key international obligations to which Australia is signatory, whether you're talking about the detention itself or the treatment of children and a range of other matters that we could discuss. What we're seeing is a selective application of which instruments we want, depending on the circumstances. And not only that, but it's only to be applied to other people. Australians, after all, are above and beyond such criticism. And that's a particularly dangerous sentiment, in my view. It's one Howard's fond of expressing. He says, Australians are a generous people. And that allows people to walk away with the label saying, I'm a generous person, while behaving in anything but a generous way. And, of course, in support for the US doctrine of pre-emption, we're also seeing a repudiation of international and multilateral agreements. The idea that the United States alone could determine when to use forces against whom is really a seriously alarming development. And, of course, they've also lowered the bar on the use of nuclear weapons and withdrawn from a number of key agreements. And in December, as you'd be aware, Howard alarmed our neighbours, including in Indonesia, when he asserted that Australia also reserved the right to launch pre-emptive strikes against terrorists in the region. I mean, I don't think Australians appreciate just what an effect that had. If you read any newspaper, in South East Asia in particular, there was real concern that this madness would actually be translated into action. And, of course, we've seen the government refuse to sign the Kyoto Agreement, which is a critical, although limited, piece of global cooperation to reduce greenhouse gasses. And the protocols against the discrimination against women. And there was an initial reluctance, too, to sign up to the International Criminal Court. So there's been a sort of steady winding back, if you like, of Australia's commitment to these methods of achieving international cooperation. And you could also argue that in our own region, there's been a significant withdrawal from cooperation and partnership of a constructive kind, as opposed to military kind, with many of our near neighbours. Playing fast and loose with international law is not in Australia's interests. To the contrary. Not least because Australia played a key role in founding the United Nations, we should be working to support it. And we've also had a role in peace keeping and disarmament actions since then, including through the Canberra Commission.

The third problem that we confront in this area of human rights is in policy development, which has been, in the case of asylum seekers, short term and populist. Hansonism, of course, provided, if you like, the siren sound. Refusing to see disadvantage in indigenous communities. The amazing thing that she could suggest that we should all be treated equally, as if we started off on an equal footing. And denying the need for specific support to groups like recent migrants and indigenous people. That was the poison, if you like, that began to infect our community. Policy development, too, has I think gradually come to reflect an immediate response, rather than the careful analysis and a long term focus. If we're going to get these policies right, we actually have to talk about them, we have to do the research, we have to try and look and other examples. We look at Europe, we can look at South America, we can look - and there are many parts of the world apart from the United States which might give us some ideas about how to develop policy. But unfortunately the major parties have too much of an eye on the polls and media reaction and too little on that careful analysis and global comparison.

And we've also seen, I think, a conspicuous failure by governments generally, not just the current government and not just this particular political party, to use the powers of government to persuade for the good. To actually get in there and say, look, okay, you may well be afraid of asylum seekers or you may well have hostile attitudes toward indigenous people, but let's talk about this. They're not acceptable attitudes. That isn't the way we should proceed as human beings. They're happy - for instance, the current government spend millions, tens of millions of dollars on ads to promote the GST and private health insurance, surely a little effort could go into reducing community disharmony and trying to turn the tide on some of those more primitive fears and reactions. We've also seen a politicisation of the public service, which makes them less useful tools, less useful in the development of public policy, because they're now seen as political strategists, as agents of the government, rather than as providing reasonably independent and fearless advice. And it's compromised many of them. As Olga was saying, the use of the defence forces in the SIEVX and other events, the whole Tampa incident, was shameful. And the children overboard incident showed that they were being used to cover up the government's sins. Now, that sort of perversion of the public service is, as I say, a serious weakness when it comes to public policy.

So, where do we go from here? I've identified three and they're not the only three problems, but they're important ones, I think. First of all, political leadership is vital. And I don't just mean elected politicians, I mean people who for various reasons got the airwaves and can influence their fellow citizens. Politics actually matters, it's a serious business and should be conducted accordingly. Those who think otherwise need only remind themselves of the changes they've seen over the last six years in a few key areas.

I think there are three critical elements necessary to restore Australia's position as a respected player in promoting and protecting human rights here and elsewhere. Firstly, the importance of restoring a humane response through education and leadership. It's easy to break down, it's going to be hard to build up again. Bloody hard, I think. First of all, encouraging identification. Seeing ourselves as human beings first and foremost, that we are fellow citizens with the people who live in our region, with people in our own community, no matter what their skin colour is or their history or their religious background. And to convince Australians that all lives are equally important. That may seem like a very obvious thing to say, but I think we actually have to start from first principles like that. And we have to encourage people to exercise their empathic imagination. If they're inclined to think that locking up people in detention centres for a very long time is a good idea, surely our political leaders can encourage people to ask the question, how would I feel if this happened to me. It's a very simple exercise and it's a great mind changer if people are prepared to do it. How would you have responded if your country had been bombed or if your husband had been tortured or if your children had been threatened - how would you respond? Would you simply sit there or would you take actions. We need antidotes to that divisive us them thinking. We need examples of people working together - and not just to fight bushfires, though that's important - but working together to overcome serious social long term disadvantage. And we need political leaders who calm, rather than exploit fears. I've seen examples here in Sydney where the Muslim community were beaten up basically because of the actions of a few. Now, I think responsible leadership would seek to calm those fears, not to exacerbate them. And, of course, the willingness to confront the effects of the policies themselves. The real damage that's being done to those in detention centres and on temporary protection visas. To give up denial. It's a hard thing for political figures to do, I've had to do it myself sometimes. You say, I made a mistake, we got it wrong, it was the wrong thing to do. And we know what the effects are, so we should stop doing it. That's an important thing, I think, for politicians to recognise. And at base, I guess, to reinstate the simple principle that we're all members of the human race. It shouldn't need stating, but I think it does in contemporary Australia.

The second thing we've got to do is to change the asylum seeker policies themselves, to be consistent with those views that I've just outlined and our international obligations - to which we were voluntary signatories. And just very quickly, I won't go into the detail on this, but first of all to abandon the language of toughness and security - as I said, we're not threatened by asylum seekers, for God sake. You know, if that's the maximum threat we confront, then we're a bloody lucky country. We should cease the repel at borders strategy. I mean, people are entitled to seek asylum, that's one of the things we've obliged ourselves to do internationally and it's a very reasonable minimum. Abandon mandatory detention of a very brief period of processing for health, identity and security checks and ensure that people live in the community. Close those hideous detention centres in remote parts of the country and provide accommodation of an appropriate kind. Eliminating temporary protection visas altogether. Refugee status should confer permanent residency, as it once did. And, of course, facilitating settlement and providing help with recovery from torture and trauma at the very least. And I'm sure you could add to that list, but that's the bare minimum. So changing the asylum seeker policies.

And thirdly, restoring our role as conscientious global citizens. We need to take part, as I mentioned earlier, in that analysis of the causes of conflict and refugee flows. That will form the basis of good policy. And Australia has the resources in our universities, in our academies, in policy think-tanks, to assist in that effort. Because globally we do need to understand why it is that some people are very badly off and why their communities are subject to oppression and in order to do that, we have to put resources and effort into it. So we should be partners in that analysis of the causes of conflict and refugee flows. More than that, we should contribute to ameliorating conditions conducive to violence. We heard earlier that Australia's contribution in Indonesia and Aceh would be far better if it were directed to things like education and support for health, social services and probably in supporting the public service to a different way of operating in respect to its citizens. Our aid budget, as I don't need to tell an audience like this, is abysmal and we could certainly do a hell of a lot better than we currently do. And we should confront that reality of global inequality, which is clearly one of the sources and major sources of violation of human rights, both directly and indirectly. It causes it in ways that Olga's outlined, because of low life expectancy, high rates of illness and disability, but it also then is a seed bed for disaffection and ultimately of violence. I'm not saying that the poorest people commit violence, they usually don't, but it's in those circumstances of conspicuous, a gap between wealth and poverty, that ideas that are essentially oppressive can take root. And Australia should, as we've done in the past, take the lead in disarmament. Not as a current, currently proposed getting behind George Bush on developing a missile defence shield. That's the most shocking idea that I've actually heard one of our political leaders endorse for some time. Well, it's only a few months since the last one, but-[laughter]. But, Australia, who once was seen as a good international citizen in disarmament and the anti-nuclear area, should again take up the cudgels on behalf of ridding the world of weapons, particularly nuclear weapons. And we should take the lead, too, insisting on just laws and respect for and adherence to the rule of international law, including inspection of our own behaviour. We can't pick and choose. Just because conditions here are on average better than they are in some of the most repressive regimes in the world, is actually no great cause for pride. I would hope that that would be taken as given. Nonetheless, we can do better and there are significant sections of our community who live in appalling circumstances, are subject to discrimination and disrespect and who we should allow the international community to draw our attention to if we lose sight of it, and that's particularly true, of course, of indigenous Australians. So, in order to be effective international citizens, we have to be prepared to allow inspection of our own behaviour, rather than insisting that there can't possibly be anything wrong with Australia because we're all generous people. And we should, I think, generally have a greater willingness to defend human rights standards and draw attention to breaches wherever they occur and whenever they occur and not see trade, for instance, as overwhelming our ability to comment on the misdemeanours of other regimes. I might mention here, Saudi Arabia at the moment, where an Australian citizen in fact is being beaten at regular intervals with a cane and the Australian government has been just about moot.

I did say three, but there's a fourth one, and it's related to the third. And that's to support and help reform international organisations. Because they're not perfect, we understand the weaknesses of the United Nations. But we need to strengthen the United Nations and its instruments, not diminish them. We need to help restore respect for international instruments, treaties, conventions and courts. And to recognise that US unilateralism or indeed any unilateralism is very dangerous, we need a balance in world affairs. After the Cold War, I think there was a real opportunity to rejuvenate international instruments and institutions and you even had the wealthiest nations of the world being prepared, albeit briefly, to talk about the need for reform, of the IMF for instance and the World Bank. We've slipped behind again in that debate and it's time to take it up.

I'm encouraged by the very many young people around the world who understand the need for these changes and I hope that Australians will come to understand that only by being global citizens prepared to allow ourselves to be subject to the same scrutiny as we would apply to others and to be judged by the same standards, will we ultimately be able to hold our heads up again, after what I regard as a very dark period in Australia's history. Thank you.