Aiming to follow up on his disastrous Q&A performance, Senator Steve Fielding elaborated on his views about asylum seeker policy this morning. At a doorstop interview he made an announcement about his “idea” for handling boat people. You can listen to the audio here (courtesy of 2UE’s Latika Bourke), but the essence of his reasoning seems to be:
- Boat people are jumping the queue;
- Each time we take a refugee who arrived by boat, we take one less person from overseas refugee camps;
- This is unfair to people at “the front of the queue” who have been waiting in camps for years; and
- We need to return the queue-jumpers to overseas camps and put them at “the back of the queue”.
There are all sorts of concerns one could raise with this, some of which were put to Fielding during the doorstop (e.g., cost, obligations under international law, etc.).
But here’s my biggest problem with this – in this morning’s comments, Fielding suggested that he was trying to be charitable and humane. But if a person was truly aiming to develop a more charitable policy, wouldn’t they propose increasing or eliminating the quotas on our refugee intake? Fielding’s claim that:
there’s people waiting for years – for absolute years – and everyone we take by boat we take one less
only applies because if government policy is to take a fixed number of refugees. If being charitable and humane are really his core principles in this debate, why isn’t Fielding arguing against that element of the policy? Why isn’t he telling us that quotas and queues aren’t charitable, that leaving anyone who has had to flee their homeland to sit in a camp for years is inhumane, and that when there are people in need we should attempt to help them?
Or does he truly believe that returning people who have arrived by boat so that they too can spend, in his own words, “absolute years” in a refugee camp, is the most charitable thing Australia can do?
ELSEWHERE: ABC News reports on Fielding’s comments.
20 Comments
Every time people in politics leap up to declaim their Christian credentials, they equally seem to underline their hypocrisy. This man isn’t fit to be in government.
His newfound concern is also at odds with his media release when he toured Christmas Island earlier this year. He said at the time detainees were living in luxury, better conditions than many Australians.
ELSEWHERE: ABC News reports on Fielding’s comments.
I think Fielding’s views would be fairly mainstream in the electorate. Any view that says we should open the borders to everyone who wants to come will not see the light of day from any political party left or right that actually aspires to govern (ie not the Greens) because it can’t be sold to the public. Being charitable and humane is not the way to get into government. Being responsible is.
He isn’t… but yes, he isn’t fit to be in parliament.
Clearly he is not the full quota himself. He is a very basic human being who if he wants to change requires general ego maintenance by someone close to him. He is seeking attention (as the bulk of humans do) and has an opinion that won’t (or can’t) listen to others objectively.
He really is a good indicator of a standard Aussie Human (stubborn and thinking of himself). Good luck to his re-election (which he is obviously thinking about), I wonder if our electoral setup will still get him in on 1.9% this year.
Oh BTW way Tobias I like your Humane angle (fixed refugee policy) on this, but as Captain Col has pointed out. We live in a Capitalist world and sharing is not part of it (unfortunately) so no one would go to the public with that as a policy. Again this is unfortunate. Why share the luckiest country on earth? Share…. humph not the capitalist way I’m afraid, some would even say irresponsible.
I think you’ll fiind baloo8 that Australia has had a very generous refugee intake under both sides of government and capitalism has nothing to do with it. It’s called democracy, and the intake of outsiders is a matter of legitimate concern to the electorate. It’s not the arrival of more immigrants so much as whether they will assimilate.
It’s nothing to do with sharing either and on that score I’d say the left is less inclined to share eg unions don’t want to share the jobs around to those who can work especially those from overseas on work visas. Capitalists, on the other hand would generally take the view that more people = bigger markets = more $$$ for those who take risks to start businesses.
it’s quite a broad brush to equate capitalist with non-sharing and non-capitalist with sharing. Is there any evidence for that sort of link?
Assimilation, another great word. Outsiders? Left? “Unions not sharing especially with those from overseas on work visas”, interesting.
Gregc09, very hard not to use broad brushes in short statements (as can be seen by many comments here). But Capitalism relies on Greed. It will not work without it. Greed is quite the opposite of sharing. And although I love many of the things capitalism gives humans, the above story and discussion about Stephen Fielding’s views shows how greed is not good.
It’s simply not us v them, we all live on a rock, let’s share it rather than bicker over who owns or rules over what. Very simplistic I know, but complexity only obscures truth.
Possum’s post on the issue of asylum seekers puts it all in perspective.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/03/11/perspective/comment-page-1/#comment-19128
An increased refugee intake has been a policy of both sides of politics at Federal level, the intake under both Howard and Rudd has grown.
unfortunately, the issue is not refugees per se, it is the perception at the community level that people smuggler’s are making a living bringing relatively wealthy economic migrants to our shores, which is seen as undermining the legitimate refugee intake.
Many here on Crikey may deride Howard’s statement that ‘we (the government) decide who comes to Australia” however he seemed to have articulated the wider community’s concerns over the people smugglers and those who can afford to pay for them.
Both sides of politics have gone out of their way to make the Australian public comfortable with a higher refugee intake and to build a community consensus in favour of refugee intakes, the issue of people smugglers and their passengers threaten to undermine that popular consensus.
The perception that any refugee who makes it to Christmas Island gets to stay in Australia, no matter their true circumstance, is one that has the potential to significantly damage the community’s support for an increased legitimate refugee intake.
You may not like Fielding, however he is articulating a concern held by a significant portion of the wider community.
Just catching up on the comments now, folks. The first point I’d make that relates to what Captain Col first said as well as some of the other comments.
By proposing an approach that involves taking fewer people who arrive here by boat, I suspect you’re right that Fielding is in line with the views of many Australians – although many Australians would also disagree. But that is a debate we can have, and one that I’m pleased to see in the comments here.
But where I take real issue with Fielding is in his claim that he’s motivated to propose this by compassion or charity. The principles he claims are guiding him don’t seem consistent with the policy he supports. I don’t think he’s being honest or logically coherent in putting his views to the public.
I agree Tobias. The bible-bashers have a completely different definition of “love”, “compassion” “charity” etc than normal people.
Not surprising really, when you consider the example set by their cult leader. “Love” apparently encompasses arbitrary punishment for things you didn’t do, eternal torture for breaking rules you weren’t aware of, vicious enforcement of blind submission, ritual humiliation and removal of all capacity for independent thought.
So a few years in detention probably do look like “compassion”, compared…
Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries. No-one can fix quotas and respectably say they are compassionate or humane or ever living up to the law.
Under the law it would make not a jot of difference if everyone of the 15 million visitors to this country each year claimed asylum from persecution because it is their right and we are legally obliged to hear their claims.
What the f……….k are we really talking about here? Fielding is a moron breaking family first’s own policy on asylum seekers just to get a head line..
And col. that generous program is an expensive hoax. Out of the world’s 4 or 5 million Afghan refugees we helped to create we could only find a spot for 303 last year and then we wonder why a whole 1996 more arrive here.
The debate was had, done and dusted way back in 1951 and has been Australian law enshrined in concrete since 1954.
It is not a debate anymore and nor should it be.
We wrote the bloody convention and agreed to honour it. And we have spent the last 60 years trying to get out of it without pulling out legally.
It’s pathetic really and all the whining and nagging in the world does not change the law.
And Michael James, refugees are not migrants to be chosen as an intake, they are supposed to have a well founded fear of persecution in their own countries.
Our gall at daring to suggest they should sit and wait in some mythical place for up to 25 years until we let them grace our golden shores is deranged to say the least. If your life was in danger would you say “I will wait for the rest of my life until OZ says I am good enough”?
I don’t think so and for a nation of people who can’t wait five minutes in a supermarket queue or at a stop light our gall is even more galling.
0.0001% of the world’s refugees coming to Australia is hardly a crisis is it.
In my observation people only ever invoke those in refugee camps as a way of bashing asylum seekers who arrive by boat. If Fielding was genuinely interested in the people “waiting for years – for absolute years” in camps then why isn’t he pushing for the government to expedite their processing, or giving funding to improve the conditions of the camps?
@Captain Col: Unions who “don’t want to share the jobs around” are hardly left-wing ones. There are right-wing unions, you know: they DO exist.
Poor Steven – even Catch The Fire have turned on him.
That’s on scary place Jeremy, no more prayers for Steve!