Asylum truth-seekers
New Zealand has been told to keep its nose out of Australia’s business on boatpeople. Rob Mitchell follows his to see if there’s any truth in the fear of a new flood.
On a good day, travelling at about 10 knots on a calm sea, a boat can take barely two days to sail the 470 nautical miles between Kupang in Indonesia and Darwin in Australia.
Heading further east into the Coral Sea, south into the Tasman and on to New Zealand is another 3000-plus nautical miles and at least two more weeks of sailing. Through what are widely regarded as some of the worst waters in the world.
Between 2012 and 2014, tens of thousands of desperate asylum seekers from countries such as Sri Lanka, Iran and Afghanistan attempted that relatively short sail from various points in Indonesia to the perceived safe harbour of Australia.
About 1000 men, women and children did not survive the trip.
Some of those who did make it were among those protesting from the imploding hellhole of Manus Island. It is one of a number of controversial offshore processing centres set up by Australia to keep the ‘‘boat people’’ at bay and discourage others from considering the dangerous sea voyage.
Those on Manus appear to have become pawns in a larger geopolitical chess match about Australia’s often unpopular stance on asylum seekers and its success in creating a billion-dollar programme to combat ‘‘unauthorised refugees’’.
Manus became the beachhead for a trans-Tasman war of words, with the truth seemingly just one victim. Many of the claims made by all sides appear to be as murky as the waters separating the asylum seekers from sanctuary.
In the wake of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s persistence over New Zealand’s offer to take 150 refugees, which later became an offer of $3 million towards support of the asylum seekers, prickly Australian politicians intimated that our noble gesture had exposed a soft touch towards illegal immigrants. Maverick Aussie politicians Pauline Hanson and David Leyonhjelm, among others, criticised New Zealand’s proposal as a threat to Australia. Even to the lives of those who would eye our rich, green shores with envy and hope.
Both senators – Hanson with the anti-immigration One Nation party and Leyonhjelm with the Liberal Democrats – believed New Zealand would become an unacceptable ‘‘back door’’ into Australia.
Worse still, it would be a message to people smugglers that the ocean channels are open again. Despite the billions spent by Australia to deal with the human tide of misery.
‘‘[New Zealand] taking the refugees is going to send a clear message to these people smugglers,’’ Hanson says. ‘‘You will end up in New Zealand and you can then actually come across to Australia, and that is not what we want.’’
‘A fatal mistake’
Leyonhjelm says the refugees would be able to exploit the special relationship between the two nations, which would be ‘‘a fatal mistake’’.
‘‘We can each live in the other country, with no restrictions, visas, no constraints that would apply to people of any other country,’’ he says.
That would allow freedom of movement to people Australia had worked so hard to keep out.
‘‘In practical terms, these numbers are insignificant. If they were to go from Manus or Nauru to New Zealand and then on to Australia, it’s almost immaterial.
‘‘The real issue here is if they get to New Zealand, because of the special relationship with Australia, i that would send a very clear signal to all the others, and there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions more, looking for somewhere to go – OK, if you play your cards right you may end up getting into Australia via New Zealand.
‘‘That’s the fear.’’
One that could cause a humanitarian crisis.
‘‘It’s a human tragedy when boat people die and both sides don’t want to see that start up again.’’
This is not the first time New Zealand has offered a hand to Australia over boat people.
In 2001 the Norwegian vessel MV Tampa rescued 438 boat people from a rickety Indonesian fishing vessel 140km north of its planned destination, Christmas Island. Australia refused to take them, sparking international outrage.
New Zealand waded into tricky diplomatic waters and swept up 131 refugees; other family members soon followed and many settled in and around Christchurch.
Did those refugees arrive in this country and then hatch plans to move west? To a country that had made it clear they were not wanted?
There have been reports of a handful moving on to Australia, some of whom have gone on to establish businesses that employ Australians, but Leyonhjelm has no data, has seen no evidence suggesting refugees have used New Zealand en masse as that feared back door.
‘‘I have no idea and don’t know if anyone has even looked,’’ he says.
Neither does he believe claims from Australia that would-be asylum seekers have targeted the longer, treacherous sail to New Zealand rather than the relatively safe hop to his country.
A journey too far
Ardern’s prodding caused a number of stories to bubble to the surface, including the news that smugglers targeting the shaky isles had been intercepted and turned back by Operation Sovereign Borders, a border protection operation led by the Australian Defence Force. Since it began operating in 2013 more than 30 boats containing close to 800 people have been turned back, with no deaths at sea.
The message between the lines of those stories appeared to be that New Zealand should be grateful for the free protection, rather than sticking its nose in where it wasn’t wanted.
But Leyonhjelm has his doubts that people smugglers are looking further than Australia.
‘‘It gets a bit irrational, this issue,’’ he says. ‘‘You are so far out of the way that getting there by boat from Indonesia or from Sri Lanka is not really an option.’’
He also has his doubts about Ardern’s motives, believing she has been playing up the issue for her own audience – ‘‘virtue signalling’’ to her political base at home.
‘‘She saw an opportunity to look a bit noble and jump on the issue and gain whatever kudos they thought could be achieved.’’
What could be achieved? Not much, according to Simon Bridges, National’s immigration spokesman.
Before Ardern, National prime ministers John Key and Bill English had offered to take 150 asylum seekers from Australian processing sites.
Bridges says the offers were ‘‘genuine’’ but his government backed off because Australia made it clear it wasn’t keen and had good reasons for its reticence.
‘‘Substantially the policy positions of National and Labour are identical; you could barely slip a cigarette paper between them,’’ he says.
‘‘New Zealand’s position has not changed, just the rhetoric. I can’t believe the new prime minister thinks the Australians will change.’’
He too thinks Ardern has been playing out the Manus Island drama for her political audience, to balance less palatable progress on the TPP trade deal.
And he is also sceptical of claims that asylum seekers are bypassing Australia for our distant, dangerous shores, or that refugees will use New Zealand as a sneaky way to enter Australia.
‘‘I’ve not seen evidence of boat people being intercepted on the way here while in government and in select committees’’ and ‘‘not heard of any evidence or information to suggest the Tampa refugees had used New Zealand as a backdoor.’’
Neither does he see this country as a ‘‘soft touch’’.
Prepared for ‘mass arrival’
His view is backed up by the facts. This is a tough country to reach, whether you choose the back door or the front.
Some boat people might have harboured designs on a life in New Zealand – John Key conceded it was a credible risk in 2015 – but none of them have made it here.
Had they succeeded, the country was prepared. Surveys at the time revealed Kiwis were happy to take some of Australia’s boat people but feared it might ‘‘open the flood gate’’. In response, legislation was changed in 2013 to give the government more power should asylum seekers reach our shores.
The Immigration Amendment Act defined a ‘‘mass arrival’’ as more than 30 people and gave the government the power to detain arrivals for up to six months while their status was investigated. This could be extended by 28 days with approval from a judge.
The legislation is yet to be tested, but new Immigration Minister Iain Lees-Galloway is ‘‘exceptionally confident’’ the relevant agencies will know what to do if needed after they undertook a significant, twomonth-long exercise in 2012.
Exercise Barrier simulated a mass arrival at Devonport Naval Base in Auckland. About 100 people acted as potentially illegal immigrants and were processed through health, customs and immigration checks.
‘‘Our agencies are well prepared.’’
Lees-Galloway is also confident those agencies will likely never need to go beyond the drill. ‘‘We know that some people smugglers do make the promise that they will get people to New Zealand,’’ he says, ‘‘but the only piece of evidence that we have is that not one boat has made it here.
‘‘We shouldn’t rule it out . . . but it is a difficult, dangerous journey.
I think the main thing that is stopping people getting to New Zealand is the thousands of miles of sea around it.’’
If they did make it, New Zealand would not be a soft touch. ‘‘We assess the validity of people’s claims to refugee status more or less the same way Australia does.’’
Tampa refugees happy here
He is sceptical of claims about hordes of refugees securing New Zealand residency and then venturing on to the Lucky Country. Immigration did not have numbers about how many Tampa refugees might have followed that route, but Lees-Galloway says the evidence suggests ‘‘the great majority’’ had remained here.
‘‘Overwhelmingly they have settled in New Zealand and built very successful lives here, so in the event that Australia did take up our [Manus] offer, I think there’s very good evidence that people would settle here and would be unlikely to want to head to Australia.’’
And Australia still retained the right to deny entry.
‘‘It is a sovereign nation,’’ says Lees-Galloway. ‘‘They can determine for themselves who they allow in to their country and if there are particular groups of people they don’t want to let into their country, that’s a decision for them to make.’’
Often that decision is a ‘‘yes’’.
For those refugees wishing to enter the ‘‘front door’’, the numbers demonstrate that Australia is a much softer touch than its neighbour.
Next year their refugee quota will grow to 18,750. Some political parties want to raise it to 27,000.
New Zealand’s contribution has been 750 a year for the past three decades, with plans to raise it to 1000. Even with the difference in population Australia’s effort is far greater.
Even when New Zealand made the noble gesture to take the 131 Tampa refugees, that was part of, not in addition to, its quota, says historian Ann Beaglehole, who has written several books on refugee issues.
She says there are cases where refugees have come to New Zealand to live and then moved to Australia. Many of the Vietnamese who settled here after the Vietnam War made the trip across the Tasman.
‘‘Ethnic communities have
always been attracted by the larger ethnic communities.’’
But she too has seen no evidence to suggest that the Tampa refugees, unwanted by Australia and taken in by New Zealand, followed their Vietnamese counterparts in great numbers.
‘‘I thought they were extremely grateful to have got to New Zealand and having a lovely time here and haven’t gone to Australia,’’ she says.
Even if that did happen, Australia would have little to fear from a refugee holding a Kiwi passport. ‘‘We’re no soft touch; it’s very hard to get into New Zealand, we pick and choose the refugees that come.’’ And boatloads of asylum seekers longing for the land of the long white cloud? ‘‘It was always anecdotal, a rumour, that the boats might come here, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve not seen any evidence, no. ‘‘There are definitely political games going on. Australia is very sensitive about asylum seekers. ‘‘They’ve had so much bad press.’’ The ‘‘bad press’’ is unlikely to stop any time soon, despite the Australians turning back the tide of refugees and deaths at sea.
This time next year it’s highly likely that the 150 refugees we offered to take will still be agonisingly close to sanctuary.
And it will still be 470 nautical miles between Indonesia and Australia; another 3000-plus to New Zealand.