Kiwi stance on refugees ‘reeks of hypocrisy’

The police have forcibly removed the last of the asylum seekers from the Manus Island Detention Centre. You may have thought the Labour-led government’s offer to settle some of the detainees in New Zealand humanitarian and generous; or you may have dismissed it as foolish and useless.

Perhaps you condemned the Australian Government as brutal and inhumane and believe that New Zealanders have more liberal attitudes than Australians.

The fact remains though that no boat-load of asylum seekers has reached New Zealand yet. This may be thanks to Australian border protection policies (as Australian leaders have claimed) or because people-smugglers have not yet invested in better boats to make their way across the Tasman.

So we do not know how this country would respond to boat people (in their hundreds) turning up here.

But we do know how New Zealand has responded in the past to the prospect of unplanned asylum-seeker arrivals.

We didn’t plan to set up an offshore detention regime like Australia’s, but we certainly intended to detain asylum seekers and to imprison them.

The possibility that asylum seekers might reach New Zealand by boat became a concern in the late 1990s.

Planning for an ‘influx’ of unplanned arrivals intensified when 57 Chinese boat people were believed to be heading towards New Zealand in 1999.

The boat stopped in Australia. To deal with the possibility of ‘mass arrivals by sea’, Jenny Shipley’s National government amended the 1987 Immigration Act, updating immigration law on the detention and deportation of those in New Zealand without a permit and on migrant traffickers.

According to then Immigration Minister Tuariki Delamere, the legislation aimed to give New Zealand greater powers to deal with the possible arrival of more than 100 Chinese boat people aboard the Alexander 11, ‘‘seeking to enter New Zealand unlawfully’’.

Just before the passage of the ‘Boat People’ legislation, as it became known, there was a tone of panic in reports about the possible arrival of the boat people.

One report said that the Chinese were understood to have paid big money to get on the boat and that the 98 men and four women, aged 25 to 35, did not speak English. Another report said that in addition to the Alexander 11, two more boatloads of Chinese could be heading for New Zealand.

An Air Force Orion would ‘‘scour the seas’’, and the vessels, which could try to land at any point on the coast, would be monitored as they got near New Zealand.

Prisons were reported to be ready for the arrivals. The boat people could also be held at the Refugee Resettlement Centre in Auckland. Airports were placed on alert because the Chinese, travelling on Tongan passports as part of a ‘‘passport racket’’, might arrive by air and claim refugee status, adding to the around 3000 refugee-seekers already waiting for claims to be determined.

To some extent the panic resulted from the denting of New Zealand’s sense that it was too far away to experience such problems. Unlike Australia, the country had been complacent and had not planned in advance, according to newspaper editorials of the day.

Minister Delamere noted that there was evidence that New Zealand was being targeted by migrant traffickers. The country would not compromise on ‘‘our ability to keep our borders secure’’. Illegal immigrants would be detained.

Criticism of the boat people bill was fairly low key, perhaps because potential critics were not quite sure whether boats would really arrive.

Labour’s Paul Swain was critical of National’s ‘‘knee-jerk reaction’’, while Trevor Mallard doubted if the legislation would have eventuated if the people on the boats had been European.

After the legislation had passed, there was no trace of the Alexander 11 or the two other boats.

Earlier critics were now less muted in their opposition, highlighting the Government’s ‘‘panic reaction’’ and critical of its handling of the situation, which had led to ‘‘unfortunate racist outbursts’’.

Labour’s immigration spokeswoman Lianne Dalziel described the legislation as an abuse of Parliament. But when Labour won the next election, the in-coming government further tightened entry rules and powers to detain asylum seekers after 9/11 in response to security concerns.

In 2001 New Zealand accepted Afghan boat people from the Tampa after Australia had refused to let them ashore. But the refugees were accepted as part of New Zealand’s annual refugee quota of 750, not in addition to it. Since 2001 both Labour and National-led governments have focused on improving border security and making provisions to detain asylum seekers.

In 2013 National legislated to deal with ‘‘mass arrivals’’, defined as more than 30 people.

In the same year New Zealand agreed to accept 150 asylum seekers per year from Australian processing centres, an offer that Australia has not taken up.

Of course, I’m not defending Australia’s policy on asylum seekers, which has been widely condemned. It’s just that New Zealand’s moral high ground reeks somewhat of hypocrisy.

If a boat with asylum seekers got here, would the current Government respond differently from the hard-line approach planned by past governments? I doubt it.

If a boat with asylum seekers got here, would the current Government respond differently?

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