Despite persistent harassment from local councils and police, after more than 80 days the refugee encampments demanding permanent visas are still standing strong in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth.
And while there are noises that Home Affairs Minister, Tony Burke, was in discussion with his department about “a solution”, there is nothing definite yet regarding the central demand of the protests—a pathway that will guarantee permanent visas for the victims of the fast track process.
But after 12 years, and longer, on six-month temporary visas (or no visa at all), refugees are not about to go quiet.
In Brisbane, the police went to court to try to stop the 24/7 protest outside Jim Chalmers’ electorate office but the court ruled that the protest could be held there between 10am and 10pm.
To make the point, the refugee protesters held a celebration protest outside Chalmers’ office the next day.
But in any case, another 24/7 protest was already in place at Labor MP Anika Wells’ Nundah office before the court decision was known.
In Sydney, the local council made a transparent attempt to weaken the protest at Tony Burke’s office, demanding that the protest’s gazebo and shade structure be dismantled, because apparently after more than 50 days, it was now obstructing the footpath. But protesters are still allowed to sit in the same spot with umbrellas!
The council move followed the second rally on 22 September, when more than 300 fast track victims and their supporters marched through Punchbowl, rallying outside Burke’s office.
Refugees still abandoned
Refugees are in for the long haul. With less than a year to go to the next federal election, it is clear that refugees are not a priority for Labor.
The refugees are not just victims of the fast track system introduced by the Liberals in 2014; they are also victims of Labor’s general policy timidity. And Labor has a particular timidity over refugee policy where it does everything it can to out-do Dutton from the right.
Labor has also done nothing about the 1000 refugees (so called “transitory persons”) brought from offshore detention in PNG and Nauru to Australia, who are also being denied the right to settle in Australia.
Labor has been increasing the pressure on the refugees (including those with Australian citizen partners or citizen children) to sign up to go to New Zealand for resettlement, but time is running out.
The deal with New Zealand ends in December this year.
Labor’s cowardice will again be exposed by there being hundreds of refugees left in Australia (and in PNG) for whom there is nowhere but Australia to call home.
In the last week of September, Danish immigration minister Kaare Dybvad Bek toured Nauru and met with Burke, claiming he had gained “valuable insights into the pros and cons of the cooperation between Australia and Nauru”.
What insights could he have possibly obtained?
Burke is presently detaining about 100 refugees on Nauru, some half of them still in closed detention.
He is also dealing with 1000 transitory persons transferred to Australia from offshore when they became too physically and mentally unwell and children attempted suicide, denying them the protection they need in Australia.
Denmark (like Britain) was considering Rwanda as an offshore detention place but now like other EU countries is looking (again) at Albania. Europe is already using detention hell-holes in Libya for asylum seekers captured at sea.
Out-doing Dutton
Meanwhile, Liberal leader Peter Dutton continues to stoke anti-refugee racism, labelling international students making refugee applications “the modern version of the boat arrivals”, trying at once to summon the racism directed at boat arrivals and to turn it onto international students.
Labor’s response is to out-do Dutton from the right.
Burke boasts of Labor rejecting more student visas than the Liberals while Education Minister Jason Clare pushes the racist barrow, saying that too many international students are competing on the rental market in the inner city.
Labor has become the willing apologist for Operation Sovereign Borders and all that goes with “border protection”—the detention, the injustice, the scapegoating, the racism, the human rights violations, the deportations, the boat turn-backs.
The fight for permanent visas for the fast track victims is one pressing element of the fight for justice for refugees—a fight that we have to win.
By Ian Rintoul
