In 1996, Pauline Hanson, leader of the euphemistically titled ‘One Nation’ Party was elected to the Australian parliament on a far right wing ticket.
She campaigned on a xenophobic platform and used her maiden speech in parliament to single out the Aboriginal community and refugees.
Over the next few years, her public support grew and Prime Minister John Howard, leader of the right wing coalition government, realised that many of his traditional supporters would switch their vote unless he lurched his party further to the right and so began the demonisation of asylum seekers in Australia.
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Asylum seekers have always been detained for identity and health checks but John Howard attempted to use indefinite, mandatory, detention as a deterrent for others that would come to Australia looking for help.
And then in August 2001, with a Federal election just a few months away, the Howard Government stooped to a new level of dip shittery by refusing permission for the Norwegian freighter MV Tampa, carrying 438 rescued refugees to enter Australian waters.
When the Tampa did finally enter Australian waters, Howard ordered the ship be boarded by Australian special forces. This brought censure from the government of Norway, which said the Australian government had failed to meet its obligations to distressed mariners under international law at the United Nations - they were right.
Years later (2007) an unauthorised biography of John Howard claimed that he had received advice from the Attorney-General's Department that refusing the asylum seekers entry into Australia would breach international law, but that he did so to gain public support in the then upcoming election….
Within a few days the government introduced the ‘Border Protection Bill’ into the House of Representatives saying it will confirm Australian sovereignty to ‘determine who will enter and reside in Australia’. The government also introduced the so-called ‘Pacific solution,’ whereby the asylum seekers were taken to Nauru (a small and poor pacific island nation made famous for it’s large reserves of mosquitos and guano) for ‘off shore processing.’
John Howard's hardline attracted strong support, especially in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks and his government’s popularity rose throughout the crisis.
In the federal election following the arrival of the Tampa, the Liberal Party campaigned on the issue, with John Howard's statement ‘we decide who comes into this country and the circumstances in which they come.’
The Australian electorate largely supported the Government and some opinion polls showed as much as 90 percent support for the Australian government’s actions.
The government started using phrases like ‘queue-jumpers’ and ‘illegals’ to describe asylum seekers and implied that they were falsely claiming to be refugees it also encouraged concerns of a security risk involving a ‘floodgates’ situation where people smugglers would see Australia as a ‘soft target.’
In a spectacular display of bastardry, the then Minister for Defence Peter Reith, suggested that groups of asylum seekers arriving by boat could harbour terrorists.
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Whether Howard intended to or not, the left wing opposition - The Australian Labor Party (ALP) were ‘wedged‘ by this demonisation of asylum seekers. Progressives within the party wanted a more humane approach while the right wing of the party wanted to match the government’s hardline policies for political advantage. The voices from the ALP ‘right’ won and since then Australia’s two major political parties have been engaged in a pissing contest to see who can dream up the most punitive and cruel asylum seeker policies.
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And here we are in 2014 and not much has changed, the new (even further) right wing government campaigned and won the 2013 election on a three word slogan of ‘stop the boats,’ despite not having any actual policies.
The Abbott government’s plan is to turn refugee boats back to Indonesia (something that makes Australians very unpopular with Indonesians) and hide the whole process behind a veil of secrecy, all the while citing ‘operational security’
It is sad to see Australia tearing itself apart over this issue. The fact of the matter is that the number of people arriving by boat is small and the public debate has been blown out of all proportion but Australians have ‘form’ when it comes to opposing immigration. First it was the Irish Catholics, then the Chinese, then the Germans and the first wave of Italians. After World War Two came the displaced people from many European nations and then, in the seventies, it was the South Vietnamese following the American war in Vietnam.
In each case, immigration of these people was initially opposed (for the same sorts of reasons) but, with the passage of time, these communities have integrated and been accepted into Australian society.
I can only hope that Australians find their humanity again soon because the only problem with joining a race to the bottom is that you might just win.
Some Australians have started to speak up and you can see what they have to say at www.sorryasylumseekers.com or by clicking HERE
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