Monday, May 9, 2011

The Asylum Debate–No edification, but lots of soul destruction

And so it came to pass that the ALP reached that ever hoped for position on asylum seekers where it has come up with a policy that had Andrew Bolt thinking it had merit.

Oh joy. Oh rapture.

Today was not a good day for Australian politics.

It started yesterday when the PM announced a new policy on asylum seekers that involved us sending to Malaysia 800 arrivals by boat, and us in turn taking 4,000 refugees. Officially the policy is thus:

Prime Ministers Najib and Gillard have agreed that core elements of this bilateral arrangement will include:

  • 800 irregular maritime arrivals, who arrive in Australia after the date of effect of the arrangement, will be transferred to Malaysia for refugee status determination;
  • in return, over four years, Australia will resettle 4000 refugees already currently residing in Malaysia;
  • transferees will not receive any preferential treatment over asylum seekers already in Malaysia;
  • transferees will be provided with the opportunity to have their asylum claims considered and those in need of international protection will not be refouled;
  • transferees will be treated with dignity and respect and in accordance with human rights standards; and
  • Australia will fully fund the arrangement.

    Australia and Malaysia are working closely with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to operationalise the arrangement.

OK. Firstly – “operationalise”. Really?

Now the good part – taking an additional 4,000 refugees (even if it is over four years) is a very good thing. Big applause from most with any sense of decency (yeah, don’t worry we’ll get to the opposition soon enough).

Humanitarian Program grants by category 2004–05 to 2009–10            
 Category  2004–05  2005–06  2006–07  2007–08  2008–09  2009–10
Refugee  5511 6022 6003 6004 6499 6003
Special Humanitarian (offshore)  6585 6736 5183 4795 4511 3233
Onshore1  1065 1372 1793 2131 2492 4534
Temporary Humanitarian Concern  17 14 38 84 5 -
Total  13 178  14 144  13 017  13 014  13 507  13 770

As you can see last year we took in 6003 refugees. So even an increase of 1,000 per year is a 17 per cent increase. Excellent.

But clearly while this is great news for the 4,000, it is pretty horrid news for the 800. The big point being that Malaysia is not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. Quite quickly it was pointed out (obviously by Tony Abbott) that neither is Nauru and thus the Government is being rather hypocritical on this issue. And I have to say it’s bloody hard to think how they are not.

Immigration Minister Chris Bowen addressed this on AM this morning:

SABRA LANE: Malaysia isn't a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees. That's been this Government's reasoning behind not opening Nauru. Why is Malaysia acceptable and Nauru is not?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well we're talking about very different propositions is the first point.
Secondly Malaysia as part of this agreement has agreed not to return anybody that we send to Malaysia who is in need of international protection to a country that they are fleeing persecution from, and that is the fundamental tenet of the Refugees Convention.

Now, I’ll agree we are talking a different proposition. Sending asylum seekers to Nauru is just a weigh station for them coming here – 61% of those who went off to the Pacific there under Howard and who were deemed to be legitimate refugees ended up here, and the rest went to other countries including New Zealand. Doubtful that it would be a deterrent anymore (now that the facts of the Pacific “solution” are known)

Also Nauru has no asylum seeker problem so there would be no increase in refugees (which as I have stated, I think is a good thing).

But.

Make that: but.

What of the welfare of the 800 asylum seekers going to Malaysia?

SABRA LANE: How will you ensure that detainees sent to Malaysia are treated humanely?

CHRIS BOWEN: Firstly the prime minister of Malaysia has given a very firm commitment in his joint statement with the Prime Minister of Australia that asylum seekers in Malaysia that are sent by Australia will be treated with dignity and respect.

Now we will have of course a relevant oversight with the Malaysian government, with the UNHCR and IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and potentially with non-government organisations based in both Australia and Malaysia to monitor its implementation.

That's something we've been discussing with the Malaysian government for some time and that would form part of the ongoing discussions in coming weeks.

SABRA LANE: Can you give personal assurances or you're leaving it up to the UNHCR?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well as I say the Australian Government has negotiated an arrangement with Malaysia where Malaysia has very clearly indicated that asylum seekers will be treated with dignity and respect.

Oh good. The Malaysian Government has given us their word.

Let’s have quick squiz at some of the Malaysian Government practices with regards to refugees in the recent past:

In March [2007], the Prisons Department handed over 11 immigration centers to the Immigration Department. People's Volunteer Corps (RELA) with its 480,000 volunteers became in charge of management of these centers.

Abuses by RELA continued during the year, with reports of rape, beatings, extortion, theft, and destroying UNHCR documents. RELA raided and burned to the ground the camp of 75 Chin refugees from Myanmar in January. They detained 23 of the refugees, and took everything of value in the camp, including cell phones, crafts made for sale, and money.


On April 21, detainees at Lenggeng Immigration Detention Centre rioted, during which an administration building caught fire. Although Malaysian media reported the riot began when 60 Myanmarese detainees were rejected for resettlement to third countries, the incident actually began on April 20 when immigration officers beat nine detainees … while interrogating them about a cigarette butt and tobacco found in the detention center. Immigration officers eventually returned the Myanmarese to their cells after they denied smoking, but continued to beat the other three detainees. When the Pakistani crawled out of the room where he was beaten foaming at the mouth

RELA officials arrested 14 detainees… for possession of dangerous weapons and creating mischief by fire or explosives. Two of the arrested reported being beaten and burned with cigarettes as they were driven away from the detention center.

Warms you heart doesn’t it…

This is who we are dealing with.

Now there are glimmers of hope in the policy due to the inclusion of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). In fact the UNHCR’s response was not entirely negative – though certainly not deserving of this headline from the ABC:

UNHCR welcomes Malaysia refugee deal

Very cautiously optimistic is a better indication of, UNHCR representative, Richard Towle’s response:

"We need to look at the details of how people will be treated and the various rights and entitlements and conditions for them when they go back there

"But most of the world's refugees are today living in countries that haven't signed the Refugee Convention so the fact that you haven't signed the convention doesn't mean that you're not treated properly.

"Having said that, it is important to identify the core protection safeguards that we would like to see in any return arrangement."

"The core [requirement] which I think everybody agrees on and that's what we call the principle of non-refoulement, that's non-expulsion of asylum seekers and refugees out of the country to face persecution," he said.

"We would want to see that and I think we are seeing that as a commitment from both governments."image

The UNHCR points to perhaps the best aspect one can point to of this policy with regards asylum seekers:

Mr Towle says the scheme has the potential to improve the way the region manages refugee flows.

"I think it's very important that this agreement is appropriately monitored and is seen to deliver not only outcomes for governments in terms of dealing with human smuggling and trafficking movements but also is seen to deliver improved protection for people in the region," he said

"I think in that sense it has the potential to... make a significant practical contribution to what we're trying to achieve in the region.

"And if it's a good experience other countries can look at it and say 'yes, that's a positive way of managing these issues. Perhaps we want to embark on similar or other initiatives under a regional cooperation framework'."

Now yes that would be good, and is actually the outcome hoped for by the Government's Regional Policy – but geez, this is Realpolitik at its most ugly. This is seen not just in the policy (which as the UNHCR does have some small glimmers of light) but in the “tough talk” of Bowen and Gillard.

First Bowen:

“If people think that the situation for asylum-seekers in Malaysia is difficult, they should endorse the fact that Australia is taking 4000 out (over) the next four years. “There's a lot of focus on the 800 we send and that's perfectly appropriate. “But let's not forget the 92,000 currently in Malaysia (in camps). We take 4000 people and resettle them in Australia and that's a good humanitarian outcome.”

Err yes – the reason we’re worried about the 800 is because the situation for asylum-seekers in Malaysia is “difficult” (though I’d probably use a stronger phrase for getting beaten or burned with cigarette butts). The utilitarian nature of bugger the 800, focus on the 4,000 is pretty stomach churning.

Then the PM (not her finest day, and surely not what she entered politics to find herself saying):

JOURNALIST: (inaudible) what would happen when the next boat arrives and there’s children on that boat. What rules have you set up for sending children back to Malaysia?

PM: Well, as you’ve seen from what we’ve announced so far, there is a commitment between me and the Malaysian Prime Minister to finalise an agreement for 800 people who seek to come to Australia by boat to go to Malaysia. We’ll obviously announce full details of all of this arrangement when the agreement is finalised, but we are intending to take a fairly tough approach – a tough approach to ensuring that we send a message to people smugglers right up the pipeline, that the can no longer say to people that they can get them to Australia. If you get on a boat, then the risk you run is that you end up in Malaysia, and I’m not going to put any conditions or caveats on that.

JOURNALIST: Will they be forcibly removed, if necessary?

PM: Well, as the Minister for Immigration said when he went with me to the press conference on Saturday, this is tough policy, and yes, we expect resistance, we expect protests, and no-one should doubt our determination to get this done.

So it’s a tough policy, that may involve sending children to a country that in the past has done this (again via the UNHCR):

2008 Summary

Malaysian immigration officials continued to sell deportees to gangs of traffickers operating along the Thailand-Malaysia border. The gangs paid from $250 to $500 per deportee. The traffickers demanded fees of 1,400 to 3,000 ringgit (about $400 to $860) to smuggle the deportees back into Malaysia. They typically sold those who could not pay (perhaps 20 percent), the men onto fishing boats, the women into brothels, and the children to gangs that exploit child beggars.

I’d be hoping for some damn good oversight from the UNHCR of the 800. Will there be?

imageWell the ALP Left seems convinced:

Senator Cameron, who tackled Ms Gillard on the issue at today's caucus meeting, said he'd come to see it as an “innovative” solution after detailed briefings.“I think that this has a positive approach in that we will be taking more refugees and people who need help,” the NSW senator told The Australian Online.

“We will be engaging with the UNHCR. And as I understand this is the first time the UNHCR have engaged at a formal level with the Malaysian government, which I think is positive.”

Geez, that must have been some persuasive briefing.

For mine, that the 800 are in Malaysia is irrelevant – Australia will have sent them there, which I believe means we have some moral responsibility over their welfare – and at the very least to make damn sure the UNHCR has not only oversight of them but also better access to other detention centres in Malaysia. If we don’t at the very, very least get that, then for me the deal is pretty much without defence.

Sure 4,000 extra refugees coming here is great. But if that comes at the cost of some asylum seeker in Malaysia getting beaten, or some child being sold to gangs, do we really want any part of it? I don’t.

So the test for Bowen is to make sure that when the dotted line is signed, we ain’t just a wishin’ and a hopin’ that all will be safe for the 800.

We should be bloody sure it will be, and bloody sure that we’ll be able to find out if that is the case. And a bit more as well…

***

And so to the Opposition. Now the ALP has announced a policy that is so damn “tough” that Andrew Bolt sees merit in it:

Here were Bolt’s first four questions to Abbott on his show on Sunday (and no, for those interested, I didn’t watch it):

  • Opposition Leader Tony Abbott now joins us. Tony, what do you think – sending 800 of our boat people to Malaysia, taking 4,000 of theirs back. Is this so crazy it might work?
  • But it might work. It might just work. If you are a boat person in Indonesia you might think twice about coming if you are going to end up back in Malaysia.
  • But it’s got the Nauru bit though hasn’t it, in the sense of it’s sending 800 of our boat people to Malaysia, or not Nauru to Malaysia. That bit you’d support, wouldn’t you?
  • But it hardly matters whether it’s sending to Nauru or sending it to Malaysia, sending the boat people to Nauru or Malaysia does it?

So it’s tough, it has an increase in refugees (which was the LNP’s policy at the election) so Abbott’s on board?

Err no:

Well, it’s a lousy deal for Australia, Andrew. I mean, it’s probably a terrific deal for Malaysia but it’s a hopeless deal for Australia. This idea that we will send them one and get five back, we’ll pay for them to take our one and we’ll pay for the costs of the five that are coming

Sending people to Malaysia means that we get five back for every one we send. Nauru doesn’t have any to send back. That’s the point. I mean, if we send them to Nauru they go there, we don’t get any automatically back. If we send 800 to Malaysia we get 4,000 back and Malaysia becomes the back door route to Australia, the open back door to Australia, and that’s why this really is a lousy deal for our country.

And this as ever is the big failure of the politics of the ALP’s plan. No matter how “tough” they go, they’ll never be tough enough for Abbott, and he’ll just keep on driving to the right, and the ALP seems desperate to catch up.  Of course Abbott is going to criticise it, why wouldn’t he when The Daily Telegraph is coming out with these headlines:

Taxpayers to pay $54,000 for every refugee brought to Australia under Malaysian solution

Yep, am sure that was written to make people feel good about welcoming 4,000 “genuine” refugees to our country.

It comes nicely off the back of Scott Morrison’s first media release on the policy:

“Increasing our overall refugee intake will not only further increase costs, but add further pressure to a programme where only one person in three has a job after five years and more than 80% are on welfare.

Ah yes, refugees are welfare bludgers. Nice one Scott. Good to see no matter how low the ALP goes, you’ll always win that limbo contest. Take this effort today on Alan Jones:

JONES:  We get rid of 800 and accept 4,000. How good is that for Australia? We get five refugees, they send us their worst 4000, we get five for every one asylum seeker who is sent back. How is that a good deal for Australia?

MORRISON: Well it is not a good deal for Australia and it is also not a good deal for those who are already here and have come through the front door and we are trying to settle properly now. There was a report last week which showed that after 5 years under that program refugee and humanitarian entrants, 83.5% or thereabouts are still on welfare after five years, only one in three have a job. We have got to do a better job on that and to add another 1,000 every year to that program…

That is the level of the debate – “their worst 4,000”. FOR F*CKS SAKE! These people are refugees! Have we no compassion? None? Has no one?

And today as well the Government announced it will increase the skilled migration level to 16,000. The Greens, the only party with any claim to morality over asylum seekers, reacts like this through its leader Bob Brown:

"We know more than 90 per cent of them turn out to be (refugees) and we should be integrating them into an Australian economy where we are going to see, I think in the budget tomorrow night potentially, queue jumpers being brought in, at the interest of the mining corporations," Senator Brown said.

Skilled migrants are queue jumpers.

Good God. What a horrid day for Australian politics.

23 comments:

Paul Kersey said...

Grog's Gamut inspires a whole Media Watch show tonight. Holy Celebrity Batman!

Anonymous said...

Just a quick comment on the 16,000 figure at the bottom. That is the total figure for the Regional Sponsored Migration Scheme (RSMS) and associated visas. It is not the total skilled migration program - only visas where regional employers sponsor skilled migrants. This is a 60% increase from last year. The total skilled migration perminent program will probably be closer to 150,000 judging from previous years.

Those RSMS visas in particular are probably not going to be used for mining companies, as they typically use 457s (temporary business visas)

Sonia said...

Yeh its so depressing. Combining the new people smuggling laws in Indonesia and the prospect of a trip to Malaysia it might lead to a reduction in numbers arriving but jeez I pity the poor bastards who end up in Malaysia. Should also shut all those up who complain about queue jumpers.
Surprise surprise the co-aolition is against

emjar said...

Great plug for you tonight on Media Watch.I felt very proud to be a regular reader and respondent to your blog.Hopefully more people will read you to get a factual and unbiased account of what is going on in Australia.Of course existing readers know how great you are at getting to the heart of an issue as once again you have demonstrated tonight with your ongoing analysis of the asylum seeker issues. Once again I now feel completely ashamed to be an Australian. What happens when the 801st person is a minor child??? How could the party I have voted for all of my life have got it so wrong?And as I've said before if we don't get it right with the children we are going to reap the rewards of very angry adults in the not too distant future.Not something Australia needs to look forward to.

ASL said...

Why do politicians all just want to appear to be tough? Because, being tough means you have to have someone else to be tough on, which in turn means demonising someone (usually someone who can't vote and the voters hate).

This sounds like random punishment ie. we can't send all of you back, so we'll randomnly choose some of you, you will never be sure.

Mr Tiedt said...

There is no policy that better epitomises the standard of Australian politics than immigration. You blog quite neatly sums up the evidence why.

On a different note, I was OK with "operationalise" - it was "irregular maritime arrivals" that made me chuckle...

Greg Jericho said...

Cheers anon. Thanks. Good points

Anonymous said...

I second the congratulations re Media Watch mention.

Long may you prosper, we, the plebs out here starved for infornation and intelligent analysis, appreciate your work.

fred

Anonymous said...

I think Bob was being ironic with the queue jumper thing.

What has not been mentioned anywhere is that it is all very well demanding that Malaysia not refoule refugees but we would have already done that.

Because people are always presumed to be refugees when they apply so we will be deliberately sending 800 people into a terrible situation to send some deluded message to people somewhere out there who are not listening.

And of course to the racists here.
We have only ever seen one family of kids forcibly deported from this country and there are still millions traumatised by it.

Who can forget the face of 6 year old Amina, my baby who had begged me to shoot her if they wanted to deport her to Pakistan, staring out of the plane in the dead of night surrounding by dozens of prison guards like she was a mass murderer.

4 days in transit lounges, a night in the snows of Rawalipindi, forced deportation home to Afghanistan and a winter in Kabul in one room where the family only survived because decent Aussies raised $40,000 in 2 days for them.

Both of the major parties have leaders who should be flogged and then sent home because we have enough of our own racists without these two poms.

Anonymous said...

Shame on you Greg, we can trust every word Gillard says. If she says that the Malaysian government will treat every asylum seeker sent from Australia with the utmost care of course they will, just as she promised that no government she leads will introduce a tax on carbon (she's doing a fab job of selling the carbon price so badly that it will never get up).

Now that we have struck such a fantastic 5:1 deal with Malaysia I expect similar deals to follow. We could deport one of our criminals to Thailand in return for five of theirs, or sell a tone of uranium to India in return for five tonnes of their nuclear waste - the deal just makes total sense!

In seriousness, this is probably such a tough deal that it will probably work to deter some asylum seekers (who access Australian news and are aware of where the people smugglers are taking them) - due to the horrendous conditions they would face in Malaysia.

It is so tough on human rights that, well, asylum seekers may be regarded as having no rights at all in Australia by proxy.

Basically it all gets down to whether the government is more concerned about leaky boats or leaky votes.

If the government was truly focused on the risk of people dying in leaky boats, it could simply provide a subsidized ferry service from Indonesia and drive the people smugglers out of the business by removing their profitability.

However if the government's main concern is dying from leaky votes, I think this policy might just win a few - from the right and in the short term.

It does nothing to put a finger in the dyke for traditional labor voters and will cause further long-term harm to the Labor party, to the benefit of the Greens.

kazann said...

I'm almost lost for words. That short fall to the bottom of the barrel was more painful than I could have imagined. Then I realised the barrel has no bottom. Its just an endless void. Mob mentality is an ugly thing.
If I were an asylum seeker considering the dangerous trip to Australia I would hope that Tony Abbott's solution was the one in place. It's previous success record for asylum seekers would be an incentive not a disincentive. How they can keep arguing for its return without being called on the obvious realities and outcomes is a sad reflection on our sub par media and their love of conflict and pandering to their audience rather than objective, investigative news. When did news become what people want to hear rather than reality?
On another, well sort of, note. On the weekend I watched a story on Channel 10 about Mr Wakil, a former asylum seeker, finally getting the surfing lesson with Mr Abbott that he had won in a charity auction. I was disgusted when the reporter refered to Mr Wakil, now an Australian citizen, as a former illegal. Our reporters know better than this and if they don't their in the wrong occupation. How dare they refer to Mr Wakil, a proven geninue asylum seeker, as an illegal when they know it is not true.

Anonymous said...

"You read it here first folks". There you go Grog - your new motto. At the beginning of Media Watch I was thinking "well someone else agrees with Grog" but it was more than that! Well done Grog. As to today's topic - after listening to a couple of the "enlightened" in my office declaim on the appropriate uses for an asylum seeker I have decided to find a nice hole to bunker myself in till the sheer lunacy has retreated a little. I should be out in about 50 years.
Cheers
Cat

Anonymous said...

The hatefulness and sheer bloody-mindedness of asylum seeker policy from both the major parties shames us all.

There is no humanity, no compassion, no seeking to articulate the truth of the matter.

Way back when I was actually working for Immigration on processing asylum seeker claims (a long past life), the first inklings of this hatefulness were beginning; the start seems to have been Tiananmen Square and unrest in Fiji.

While Australian policy has never been great in this regard, there were times it was very much better. I await the day (with little hope) a politician in a major party exhibits the spine to say what we really should be doing and how we really should be treating desperate people.

Victoria said...

Fact # 1, you insert the quote:
'Malaysian immigration officials continued to sell deportees to gangs of traffickers operating along the Thailand-Malaysia border. The gangs paid from $250 to $500 per deportee. The traffickers demanded fees of 1,400 to 3,000 ringgit (about $400 to $860) to smuggle the deportees back into Malaysia. They typically sold those who could not pay (perhaps 20 percent), the men onto fishing boats, the women into brothels, and the children to gangs that exploit child beggars.'
However, to state the bleedin' obvious, which has occurred to me, but seems not to have occurred to you in your fervour to make your point, the 'deportees' that that extract speaks of, are deportees from Malaysia, NOT from Australia. Malaysia has agreed NOT TO DEPORT Australian 'deportees'. So the emotional point about the 'child beggars' et al., is kinda moot.
Fact#2: You complain about the beatings etc. that refugees receive in the detention centres. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it is my understanding that the Austarlian government has negotiated for the Australian deportees to not be placed into those camps upon return to Malaysia. They will be free in the community, as far as I can understand. Now, if you have some horror stories about refugees abroad in the community in Malaysia, under the auspices of the UNHCR, with shelter and living expenses being provided by the government, of being picked on, raped, whatever, then that's a different story. And let's have it.

Freduardo said...

Always enjoy your posts Greg.

Am I the only one that had a problem with the naming of the programs? "Pacific solution" - I mena how mush does this sound like "Final solution" a certain national socialist party had in the mid 20th century. (Sorry - Godwin's Law)It's just that it always bothered me...

han said...

Since both sides of politics would like to pretend all this tough love on asylum seekers is purely based on concerns for their safety arriving by leaky boats, not latent racism, I am curious what if those queue jumpers hire a luxury yacht and sail to our shore in the safest way possible? What if they are white farmers from Zimbabwe (imagine the uproar in the tabloid frontpage)? And how did those existing refugees in Malaysian camps got there in the first place? Not by taxi I presume? Mostly by boats too? Why is arriving by boat in Malaysia more legitimate than in Australia?

Monica's wicked stepmother said...

Can we send Alan Jones to Malaysia as our "worst refugee'?

Andrew Carr said...

Three points:
1) Jones is wrong to claim we get their 'worst'. We are getting 4000 refugee's who have been confirmed through the UNHCR.
2) My understanding is that the 800 will be released into the Malaysian community. Once the deal is in place, the Australian Government ought to be held to a high standard for how these people fare, though hopefully this could see increased conditions for all Malaysian asylum seekers (in the same way Australia has already been helping Indonesia improve its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees).

3)Long term, something like this deal could be the way we solve the issue. In return for our neighbours stopping boats leaving for Australian shores (Which is a problem of both sovereignty and a humanitarian nightmare given the sea crossing), Australia agree (as a rich, lowly populated country) to take an increased share of refugees. I've begun to make the case here: (http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2011/05/09/Solving-the-asylum-seeker-problem.aspx) that this is how we will once and for all 'solve' the issue. The specifics in this case are obviously rushed and could easily break down, but in outline, this is a policy approach that could work.

Rhiannon said...

I am also pretty sure Bob Brown was being ironic.

Great post as usual Grog, thank you for presenting these issues in such a clear way.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the prominance boat arrivals has in our society when they represent less than 2% of our annual migration. One can only conclude that it is due to racism and xenaphobia.

BennO said...

Well deserved kudos on media watch mate.

Andrew Carr said...

"Anonymous said...
I can't believe the prominance boat arrivals has in our society when they represent less than 2% of our annual migration. One can only conclude that it is due to racism and xenaphobia"

I don't agree. While there are obviously racist elements in Australia, it's not really true of our political class, and popular concern seems far less tide to who or how many are coming as the manner they are.

Both the Hawke/Keating and Howard governments increased overall immigration numbers without much popular concern because they had demonstrated a form of control over the borders. That control of sovereignty is what the political class seeks, and what the racist/xenophobic elements play off to get a wider attention.

Remove that challenge (as the Malaysian deal could lead to, or better yet a proper regional processing centre) and the issue can return to being a minor concern, rather than the wildly out-of-perspective blow up it is these days.

Anonymous said...

Mr Rabbits mob, under the John W regime did it. Now Joolya and her mob want to do it. Out Source Responsibility for boat people. Both big party`s should decide to get behind the Humanitarian Treaties we have signed. Or ditch them. Stop the International grand standing. Or stop the homeland bigotry and cruelty. I am sick of boat people football.